"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.
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.
