Patriarchy on hind legs

I saw patriarchy today. It was on its hind legs.  Arms akimbo, it stood at the door, surveying the room. Appraising all of us. Up, a lesser being jumped! He smiled so wide I feared his face would crack. As he got closer to it, he started clapping his hands in greeting, the traditional way. Then he went down, almost squatting, all the while clapping those hands in this endless greeting. The meeting froze. The cameraman turned the lens towards it. Satisfied with the greeting, patriarchy clapped back to acknowledge the greeting and told the lesser being to stand.

 It was led to the high table.  The special place reserved for it. Up on the podium, from whence it could continue to appraise us. The flowers were beautiful, a massive bouquet that must have cost at least twenty real dollars. Even the bottled water laid in front of it was of a different variety. We all had the cheaper 50 cent sort. Patriarchy sat back in its high chair, took out its three mobile phones and laid them out in front of itself. Not bothering to turn them off, or putting them on silent. Patriarchy is important you see. It must be available 25/7. It cannot miss a call. Besides, it can always answer its phone mid speech, “hello! Yes! It is me. Yes. Me; Honourable/doctor /ambassador/engineer/prophet/reverend/bishop/Mr/father of/Minister/chief/imam”

It always has to remind the caller and all within ear shot, of its importance.

I celebrated patriarchy today. Aided and abetted its power over me, over all of us. There is a special way to greet it. Colourful. Wordy. Full of humility. The longer it is the better. The lesser being took the microphone. Asked another lesser being to welcome the great patriarch, in that special way reserved for patriarchy. Lesser being two obliged. Down he squatted. Asked all of us to clap our hands in unison while he chanted the greeting. A long, colourful praise poem. Praising the totem. Inviting the ancestors of the totem into the room. Thanking patriarchy for gracing us with its presence, we of lesser importance. Then he invited us the women, nay ordered the women to ululate, in the special way that women ululate for power. I do not possess the gift of ululation – fortunately. So I sat with my mouth half open in amazement, while my sisters’ ululation must have rung all the way to Samora Machel Avenue.  Patriarchy fiddled with one of its phones, then, the other. Clearly bored by this performance for its supplication.

I saw patriarchy last week. It was on its hind legs in another room, in another town. It walked into the room late. All the chairs were taken. Mostly by women. There was only the floor mat left, next to the woman in the blue dress. She shifted to make space for it. But it stood erect, and smirked.
Then the women on the chairs got the message through osmosis– make way, make way, patriarchy is here!  Suddenly three chairs were vacant. Oh two more! Plus four more! Such a vast choice. It surveyed the chairs, appraised the room, and chose the one strategically next to the window. It was too hot to sit anywhere else.

Patriarchy is good at 'interpreting' words and others' thoughts. Even when we are speaking the same language; “what this woman is TRYING to say is.....I think the BROADER issue is......The more strategic discussion IS.....

See, it is the role of patriarchy to think for lesser beings, to interpret their words, and even to yank thoughts out of their heads. Patriarchy feels it carries the burden of framing every discussion and reframe it so that we lesser mortals get it/get with the program/abandon our silly ideas/think bigger/think better/generally fall in line.
Then there is the real interpretation. It is the role of patriarchy to provide literal translation for those of us who don’t speak ‘the language’ at all, or well. English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese. That language. It is the duty of patriarchy to translate as well as decide what is important and what is not. I listened to patriarchy two weeks ago, up in Binga, in Siachilaba ward. The women spoke Tonga. The visitors spoke only Shona. Translation was needed.

“I was very happy to buy my own pots with the money I got from the garden”, Georgina said.  

Translation; “haaa, she is just saying some small -small things.”  

I heard patriarchy in Haiti three years ago. It had to translate from Creole to English, for the visitors to understand each other with the women in the program. “Sometimes we don’t even enjoy the sex!” said Marie. All the women affirmed her with claps and whoops. We were bemused. What had she said? No translation. All picture, no sound. We asked for translation, it wouldn’t come. We begged.  Then we got angry. Demanded it! “Well, she just said something very silly, you don’t need to hear it”. Patriarchy clapped its mouth shut and looked the other way. Patriarchy had spoken. It had decided. This was not to be spoken about. Not on its watch.  

All my photos are full of patriarchy. It put its paternalistic arm around me in every picture. I am not sure why. In workplace conference group photos, community photos, social gatherings.  It just wanted to touch. To feel?  To protect? Who? From what? We will never know. We just know we were OWNED.

I can now spot patriarchy from a mile off. I have learnt its ways. Some of them still fox me. Some still surprise me. I just need to get better at dealing with it, when it walk in on its hind legs.

 

More weddings, less funerals

"You are looking for the one who was sick? He is not here anymore. He is gone". My heart sank, I looked at my colleague. He looked down. The old woman was confused, wondering why we were crest-fallen. "No, no! I don't mean gone, gone.  I mean he has gone where others go!" Even more confusing. We only knew of one place where "others" had gone in the last fifteen and more years. Somewhere up in the sky. Or the other wing. The woman kept up her bright smile. "I mean he went Egoli! To Johannesburg! Where everyone goes these days. He needed to find a job. What could he do here in the village? So we found some cash, and sent him on his way. He was now very healthy. Very, very fit. Agh, sorry, you thought I meant he was dead? Oh no. He is very much alive!"

This story was related to me by one of my colleagues in an anti- HIV & AIDS program that my organization supports. The same story has been repeated over and over and these last two weeks as I went around visiting our program partners, and the communities they work with. There are no more Home based care (HBC) patients. Most of them are up and about. Thanks to the availability of Anti Retroviral Treatment in Zimbabwe. This is one big change that has occured since I have been gone. Let me say, since I lost the third of my siblings in 2000. Everywhere we go, the partners have largely abandoned the HBC programs.  Gone are the days of distributing bars of soap, detergents, gloves, and bed sheets. Now it's medication, nutrition, and livelihoods.

One of the things I so looked forward to when I left Zimbabwe was the luxury of spending each weekend in my own house not going to funerals, or to pass condolences for the ones I had missed.  I relished the idea of weeks and weeks without having to bury anyone. I so yearned to listen to, dance and enjoy my favourite Reggae music. I had to clear the space clogged by funeral dirges which had become the songs in my head.  Yet I dreaded the expense of flying out every month to come bury a relative or two. I opened a separate funeral/illness fund. I abandoned it after three years. I had hardly saved anything. 

This whole year I have only buried three people whose HIV status I knew. What bliss! Ok that sounds wrong. But you get the picture.  Both Granville cemetery and Westpark did not look like giant "festivals" when we had the two funerals. Back in the late 1990s, if you were given a burial time of 1100hr you just had to be there at 1100hr, and finish by 1200hr. If you spent too long you would be drowned out by the funeral next to you, and the other one on the other side. Women decked in their church uniforms, the Lutherans in purple, the Methodists in  red, the Anglicans in blue, and the ubiquitous Mapostori in white looked festive and sang in their loudest voices while the drums competed. Anyone passing by the cemetries who didn't know any better would think we were all on colourful picnics. Ice cream, juice, milk and fruit vendors soon found captive markets and they would descend on the "picnic" sites in droves. They made a good killing - pardon the bad taste pun. In 1998, my brothers and I ended up on first name terms with one of the undertakers. "Ah welcome back the Mawarires! Nice to see you!" The poor fellow forgot where he was. Nice to see us? We quickly forgave him, he had seen us thrice, in three months. 

I have only visited two elderly relatives in hospital this whole year, both of them with diabetes. More bliss! By 2001, I could find my way round Parirenyatwa hospital or the Avenues Clinic with my eyes closed. Of course there was always one ward in each, whose very mention you knew what it signaled.  I damaged my left hip going up and down those stairs at Pari by walking too soon after a major operation. We just had to do what had to be done. 

Anti retrovirals are now easily available and affordable. Just last week, I got a frantic call from a friend whose brother did not know how and where to access ARVs.  By the end of that very day, we had three people calling back to say let him come and get them. The very next day, a community based organization dispatched a counsellor on a bicycle to his rural home. ARVs by room service! 
In Binga, one of the remotest, and poorest districts in Zimbabwe where I just came back from, dozens of women and men told me their stories of living with HIV. This in very public forums and in mixed groups. They showed me their vegetable gardens where they grow all varities of veg for themselves and for sale. Some have started income generating projects which - yeah yeah before all you NGO naysayers ask- they actually do generate tangible income! Women and men sang (what is an NGO visit without a song and dance for the 'donor'?) about the goodness of Anti Retroviral Treatment, and encouraged men to accompany their wives to go and get PMTCT drugs.

 HIV is still around. Thousands of people have it. There are even new infections. There are still some people dying. I met two 'peer educators' who between them have six wives. That is not the story for today though. I have been to six weddings in the last year. In my church the wedding banns take at least 20 minutes each Sunday. At weddings and parties if the food service is late, you are sure to hear several people shouting, "hurry up, those of us on medication need to take our pills on time!" And you know they are not talking cancer medication. I am fascinated by women I have seen exchanging stories about their pills, comparing the colours, wondering why they are different. They laugh at one another, "ah my HIV is probably bigger than yours".

Zimbabweans might be poor, suffering under the economic crisis and the political yoke is still around our necks. But AIDS related deaths no longer stalk the land. I am happy that thousands of women no longer have to carry clinics on their heads, as my friend Edna at Women's Action Group once put it. They can get on with their own lives and have a little snooze if they wish.

I have a song in my heart and it's Bunny Wailer's Rock and Groove. It's not Jerusalem My Home. Now where to find a big shocking green hat then a purple fascinator for those two Christmas weddings? 

 

Where am I?

"So how does it feel to be BACK home? You must be happy to be BACK? Isn't it great to be BACK?" Back, and home. I can't relate to those two words. Back means returning to something or some place familiar. Where one originally came from. Home is supposed to be that place you are 100% sure of. Your truth North. "I can always go back home", I would say to myself when fed up with Johannesburg. "Don't treat me as if I haven't got a home to go back to", I would scream at the human resources manager when I was in a foul mood.  Yet here I am, exactly a year to the day that I arrived in Harare, and I still can't even put it in words.

I recognize many of the landmarks. Sure, the streets look familiar. There is Samora Machel Avenue. I remember where it meets Fourth Street. The jacarandas are in full bloom along Sherwood Drive. My house is still where I left it, past Westgate Shopping mall. My uncle's house is still at the end of the cul de sac, in Warren Park. I can find it in the dark. My favourite cafe, Number 40 Cork Road, still serves those delightful crepes, while the sweet potato vendors still park their rickety cars  along Lomagundi Road. I swear those measuring buckets are still the same ones they used in 2002.
Yet, so much has changed in this country and in this city since I have been gone, I don't recognize this as my home, as the place I came 'back' to. This is a new Zimbabwe. These are all new Zimbabweans.  The language is unfamiliar. The conversations are new and strange. The values are from another world. What matters to those I thought I knew, I can not relate to. As my friend Lisa V's mum declared on arrival in Beijing, in her Santa Fe drawl, "this is what they call a foreign country!"

Yes losing my mother very suddenly, three months after I arrived here has contributed to my loss of bearings. I have lost the sense and meaning of this as 'home'. But this is only a part of the story.
In the next few weeks I shall find the words and paint you a picture. I will try to answer that question you have asked dear friend, "how does it feel to be (back), in Zimbabwe?"  If I sound incoherent, it is because I have no vocabulary to describe what I see, or more accurately how I feel.  Sometimes it will be because I am very sad, and in despair. I hope the joy and happiness that I feel on the odd Wednesday comes through as well.

I will not be writing about those three men you know or hear so much about. They are not Zimbabwe. They are a very small part of it. The real Zimbabwe, the real stuff that is happening here is way beyond these men and I dare say, way beyond even their understanding.  There are far more interesting 'new people' that I have come across, whose lives and lifestyles should be the subject of several novels and movies. 

I will stay away from the big political headlines because those are actually the least interesting  about this new Zimbabwe. There is a whole other country far from the media's gaze, interest or even comprehension.
Come with me, as I discover Zimbabwe and her people.  I hope you like foreign countries.

 

For my son Andile at 18

The day you have been waiting for has finally dawned. I have watched you desperate to come of age. In many respects 18 is the magic age. First you get to vote! And you must vote. The world is run by those who participate. I have told you that before. I know you have heard too many people say oh it’s a waste of time. Politicians are corrupt. They never do anything for us. Your silence makes it worse. Vote, show them that you matter. Even if they rig, they will be rigging based on knowledge that you don’t want them!

You are now allowed to have pleasurable safe sex. Yes you are. Sex is a wonderful thing, to be enjoyed, with someone you genuinely like and love. Sex is not equals to pain, disease, and death – as you may have seen all around you as you grew up. It doesn’t have to be like that. Take your time though. Sex will always be there, when you are 69 or 103. As I told you when you turned 16, know yourself, your sexual preference and your sexuality. There isn’t one pre-destined-cast in stone-this is how a man should be thing. No. We live in a world of choices. That is why I have exposed you to the world, from Vietnam to Cambodia, Johannesburg to New York. It’s all yours honey. Be a global citizen.

Narrow mindedness and fundamentalism has no place in a rights respecting family or society. Be open to learning. Be open to other cultures. Appreciate diversity. Value every human being. We all have a story to tell. Or as that lovely song by Ray Phiri says, “we are all tributaries of that great river of pain, flowing into one ocean”. I prefer to see it as a great river of joy and love. Hatred of “the other”, intolerance of those whose lives you don’t understand, or stereotyping them, should be anathema to you. You would know this better my son. They said children of single mums were badly behaved brats with no manners or direction. Look how you have turned out, even if I say so myself!

You are at the point of choosing a university course of study. It is hard. Choose something that you will love doing, and as someone once said to me, something so portable that you can make a living anywhere in the world from it. Choose something that will not only earn you money but that will enable you to make a difference to other human beings’ lives. You will enjoy your university years. So much freedom, so much to learn, so much fun stuff to do, so many mates! These will be the best years of your life. Enjoy them.

A year ago you chose to be confirmed as an Anglican. Good for you. Grow spiritually, in whatever direction you choose. Always remember that a church or a mosque, or a temple doesn’t make you a better person. It simply helps you along. It is not about mouthing it each day or proclaiming your religiousness on your face-book page. No. It is the love, care and compassion and respect for the rights of ALL your fellow human beings that matters. You can live your entire life without ever darkening a religious establishment’s door, but it is what you do, say and how you live your life with others that truly matters. Your faith is yours. Don’t foist it on anyone else. Respect others’ choices.


I am so proud of how you have matured in the last two years. You now watch and read current affairs. You have to know your Achebe from your Dangarembga. You care about South Sudan. You don’t know how proud I was of the week you spent during your last holidays building a school in Alexandra township. I have seen you indignant when you witness injustice and pain inflicted on others.

You have turned 18 in the year that your dear granny left us, three months ago. I don’t know what she would say to you if she was here. What I do know is that she will always love and protect you wherever she is. She will be happy if you continue to grow up as a gentle, caring, loving and GIVING man. Giving to others doesn’t mean you have excess, or you want it publicized through megaphones. Just love and give. That is the rent you pay for being on this beautiful planet.

I love you my youngest ‘baby’. You keep me sane each day.