I will vote in 2018, not this year

I did not go home to vote today. I already knew my ‘candidate’ was not on the ballot paper. All of the ballot papers, Presidential, parliamentary, local government. She was not there. No, this had nothing to do with rigging, lack of identity documents, lack of adequate time to prepare or any of the logistical issues – before you consign my candidates’ absence to all the alleged stereotypical issues that everyone has been rattling on about. No.

My candidate gracefully chose to step aside. Walked away from this election – literally and metaphorically, because she knew that this was not that sort of election. My candidate figured out  five years ago that the 2013 elections were never going to be about the issues or things she, myself and probably millions of other Zimbabwean women care about. She knew already, that this was merely an election to choose one man over the other. Yes. A man. Women like my candidate have been quite clear for some time now that it didn’t matter how clever, analytical, or clear they were about what the problems are in our country and what the solutions could be, they did not stand a chance. Their voices would get drowned out in this all male contest. And if we were ever in any doubt as to what this election was about, a young man representing MDC-T told us categorically on South Africa’s E-TV last weekend – “this election is not about VALUES”, he thundered, “all we want is to remove Robert Gabriel Mugabe”. I have never understood why or when it became necessary to pronounce his name in full like that? Interestingly the other contestants are now referred to in that way…’Morgan Richard Tsvangirai’ Hee hee. Is that supposed to give them more gravitas? (Or more curiously, referring to them by their totems/clan names. Each time this happens I have visions of their wives kneeling on the floor wiping their penises after sex). Let me not digress. We were told the truth. Or more accurately we were reminded. The message was broadcast across the region. Whatever little denial I had left was banished from my head. I cancelled my ticket.

Values. A concept that has largely deserted our politics and our people. Honesty. Integrity. Humility. Care for another one. Heck – just being a good person! We forgot what that means many years ago. It is now person eat dog and its owner. It is not just the political leadership who lack values. It is most leaders, from so called Civil Society, to religious bodies to even the family. Everyone just wants what is good themselves. The fanciest car. The biggest house. The largest amount of cash. The longest weave. The latest Apple product. The biggest Bible. Let us not forget this last one. The biggest fashion accessory of my people. This is what matters. How you get it is not that important. You just have to have it. In NGOs– that part of the population with which I am most intimately connected, we made sure we generated these material things from our vantage point. It started with us being the ones getting forex, trips outside Zimbabwe, (to discuss the crisis in Zimbabwe), and the fuel coupons. This was back during the hyper-inflation period. Soon we got hooked onto these lovely things. We generated trips to Joburg and London. As Directors and Senior program staffers we made sure we did not miss the next per diem. If there was no per diem we threw such tantrums that the money just had to be found. Our donors did not disappoint. After all we were the leaders furthering the democracy and good governance agenda. Development? Rural development? Urban poverty? That agenda is coming later, for now we just needed Mugabe to go.  

When the ‘crisis’ eased after dollarization, we struggled to keep up our lifestyles. We almost fell into the bottom 5%! We had to do something. So we generated more trips. The smallest altercation with a police officer became global news. Even if it was for an infringement of the road rules. We organized workshops, preferably after hours, or out of Harare, just so we could award ourselves the $30 per diem. Why we had to get a per-diem to participate in our own workshops I still don’t get. Actually I do. There is a name for it. Greed.

Greedy. Selfish. Now there are two words that define who we have become. At the top of the greed ladder are the ones who want to control all the diamond mines. In the middle the ones who fleece anyone fleece-able; the plumber charging an exorbitant amount to fix a mere broken pipe, the mechanic stealing car parts instead of fixing your car, the school teacher charging for extra lessons when she should have been teaching properly during normal school hours, and the home affairs officer wanting a ‘Coke’ to give your baby the birth-certificate to which she is entitled. On the same spectrum, the church leader/founder screaming around town in a 10 fancy- car- convoy while his congregants have not had a decent meal in many months.     

Most of us have, over the last decade forgotten what this clamour for change was about to begin with. For some of us it was as that political party person said – not about values. It was only about getting rid of Mugabe. He could never do anything right. Nothing that he said could ever be true, or good, or useful. And if the uninformed among us were to be believed, the man and his government had never EVER done a single good thing for Zimbabwe since his mother Bona delivered him. Mugabe and anyone associated with him were just bad because….they are intrinsically bad. Gone was the critical perspective. Even those of us who went through doors of UZ thanks to his social development policies did not ever want to be heard acknowledging it.

Across the street, our newspaper editor friends and journalists in the non-state media joined the ‘party’. Besides the entertainment good news, everything and anything that Mugabe and his party said or did was just to be trashed. Ditto, across the borders, and across the seas. Ours became the single narrative – MDC good, ZANU PF bad. Simple. No room here for nuance, or complexity. And we all know, to quote Chimamanda Adichie Ngozi ‘the danger of the single story’.  

My candidate is not on the ballot paper because she would simply be hounded off the political stage by the sexist, misogynistic, homophobic and violent political culture that pervades Zimbabwe. From a whole elder statesman who swears at a diplomat from another country and calls her a ‘street woman’, to the average Tendai and Senzeni, who take to Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms to abuse others using the most degrading Shona and Ndebele words ever seen in print! ZANU planted and cultivated this political culture, it got nurtured by other political parties, sections of civil society and ordinary citizens. In between the swearing at ‘your mother’s vagina’, it is hard to pick out what is at political stake and how the one whose mother’s vagina is better/cleaner/smaller,(or whatever it is one’s vagina is supposed to look like on public platforms), will do anything different.  Political violence and intolerance is certainly not the preserve of ZANU PF.

‘Zimbabweans should stop being driven by ideology and be more driven by economic pragmatism’, advised one economist on twitter.  For many days I have wondered what this meant. I guess it is in the same vein as saying this election must be devoid of VALUES. The economist should have said in simpler English, don’t think, just focus on making money. Be good capitalists and your problems will be solved. It doesn’t matter where the money comes from, who gets hurt in the process or who you shove out of the way.

My candidate is not on that ballot paper because she thinks too much about ideology. She worries a lot about what some of the choice phrases mean; attracting foreign investment (of what sort? To invest in what?); Reengaging the North/West (Because? How will we make sure we don’t lose power and control over our resources?); Attracting donors (so that they can support whose development?);  Unlocking Zimbabwe’s wealth (so that it goes into whose pocket?);  Media freedom, (to promote whose rights and will black women in Mkoba township get to speak for themselves? On their rights?). See what I mean? My candidate asks too many questions. She wants to have conversations that are about ideology, values and principles. In the current atmosphere,  she will not be heard. She might as well be speaking to herself and her few friends like me who make her helpful cups of coffee but aren’t enough to win her an election. She will not have an inch of space in the media. She will have very few NGO friends, religious ones, or media ones because that is not our language at this moment. 

I will vote in 2018. My candidate will run in that election. The dust will have settled. I am optimistic that come the next elections Zimbabweans will put values back on the agenda. We will debate and be clear about our leaders’ political ideologies.  I see NGOs in another five years discussing and implementing human rights based DEVELOPMENT for all Zimbabweans– not just the heterosexual.  In the next five years, I want to have honest conversations about the unfinished business of RACE and RACISM. Honest conversations, inside Zimbabwe and outside Zimbabwe, rather than the current dishonesty that says it is one of the present male leaders’ sole agenda. It is still my agenda. By the time we vote in 2018, we will have a definition of democracy and participatory governance which is not just about personalities but about my favorite topic- street lights. Yes really. Street lights. to increase safety and security for my granddaughters when they walk late at night in the township.

By 2018 we will have developed a new political culture, one which at the very least allows each Zimbabwean to speak, act, chose, and be who they want to be.  I will vote when my country and its women’s broken souls have healed. When we relearn how to just be what my mother used to call ‘good people’. Simply that.  I so wish that by the next election – Zimbabwe will have reverted to being a secular space.   Jesus will be removed from the ballot papers and we will keep him off  forever. As a black Zimbabwean woman, it is my deepest wish that this is the last election in which the only choices in front of us are  ‘BULLS’, (their party’s words not mine!), and a bunch of great-grandfathers who have never heard the phrase ‘sexual autonomy and choice’.  

Why I voted yes in the referendum

I voted yes. I stood in the short queue and within less than 10 minutes, I had cast my vote. My son Andile who turns 19 soon, was thrilled to cast his first ever vote. He kept wondering if it was really over? Whether there was anything else required of him? We took several photos of our pinkies in the parking lot. The police looked on disinterestedly.  

I voted yes because indeed I like this draft constitution. I have read all of it for myself.  I didn’t understand some parts, so I asked my dozens of lawyer friends to explain it to me. This was after I gave up on civil society organizations getting round to explaining it to those of who are legally illiterate. I could not rely on the parliamentary committee because they were too busy serving their parties. In mid 2012 when the first draft leaked out, it was immediately seized upon by several “experts” who trashed, twisted and interpreted it for us in what have become the hallmarks of Zimbabwean public discourse – hate speech, hyperbole, and plain old partisanship. Because it did not say things in exactly the way they wanted them said, my fellow NGO workers were having none of it. For several weeks, I kept asking some of the organizations my international NGO funds, “What exactly is the content of the draft constitution and what should we as citizens know and think?”  The conversation would start off nicely, but within a few minutes it would degenerate into a fully fledged attack on the former ruling party, and their (evil), leader Robert Mugabe. We never got to the good parts, if there were any in their minds. I was left none the wiser.  So were millions of Zimbabweans.

I did not trust any of the media to translate the draft either.  They are all hung up on either Mugabe, or Tsvangirai, so their ‘analysis’ focused on these two men.  We all got earfuls on what the draft provides for ‘Mugabe’, as if he will forever be the President of Zimbabwe.  Even as we went to vote, the so called international media obsessively reported on Mugabe going to vote, what the draft means for him, what will happen to HIM, and what he is likely to do. When they got tired of that they turned to what the draft means for Tsvangirai, in particular that the post of Prime Minister is not provided for in the draft.  As if to say we want Morgan for Prime Minister now or for posterity!

If it wasn’t about these two men it was about gay rights. Following the ruse cleverly created by ZANUPF,  several sections of Zimbabwean civil society fell over each other denouncing gay rights, telling us how Christian/God fearing or good Shona-Ndebele peoples they were, and they would   never tolerate gay rights.  It was open season for hate speech. Yet on closer inspection, gay rights were and are still not in the draft! Grave omission if you ask me but that is the subject for another day.

Only in the last few weeks, after the referendum date was announced, did both the media and the NGOs start complaining that they had not had enough time to study the draft and tell citizens what’s in it. The average Chipo and Themba have been short changed not only by the state in its current form, but even by those who should have known better.  I am privileged to have had access to the various drafts, to some of its writers and to the few spaces where serious analysis of the draft happened.   I refused to cede my personal choice and right to be informed to someone else. I went out and looked for the information, because the single narrative of my country was beginning to feel too simplified and too narrow. The average citizen was left stranded by politicians, the media and civil society, way back in July 2012. Yet these are all people who all claim to be on their side or working on their behalf. We should have known better.

I voted yes because I am tired of this unending constitutional conversation – if one can politely call it that.  I was there in 1997 when we started a movement for a new Zimbabwean Constitution, the National Constitutional Assembly. Myself and a few other activists were invited by two young men, Tawanda Mutasah and Deprose Muchena to work with them in creating what became the NCA. Back then I was a bright eyed, easily persuadable feminist activist in the making, leading a network of women’s organizations – the Zimbabwe Chapter of Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF). Our membership was 38 women’s organizations and movements. Deprose and Tawanda, working under the auspices of the Zimbabwe Council of Churches spearheaded the formation of a movement that was to catalyse constitutional transformation and would forever change the face of Zimbabwean politics and civil society activism.  Our message was simple, constitutional transformation was about crafting new content, through processes that involved all Zimbabweans. It has been ‘16 years of hard struggle’, as ZANU PF would say! Sixteen years in which the people have been engaged, mobilized and they have spoken, through various means.  It has not been a perfect process. It has not been totally participatory. The journey has involved tears, and in some cases blood. But in my book, I felt involved, engaged, asked what I want, and felt I had my say.  When I didn’t want to engage I made my choice and didn’t participate. I also know that the women’s movements valiantly talked to and educated women. Inevitably they too would get caught up in the partisan politics and get lost in the melee. It has not been easy to go against the grain, whatever the grain was at that moment.

There are a few things that I don’t like in terms of content. There a few things missing or which I would have wanted to see writ large. But on a scale of one to 10, I give this draft constitution a 7.5. As I have grown older, less cross-eyed and not easily persuadable, I know that one never gets their wish 100%.  The Zimbabwe we lived in 1997 is not the Zimbabwe we are in today. If there is only one indicator of this fact, it is that this society has careened to the fundamentalist right, culturally, socially and religiously. So the bar some of us had set 16 years ago on women’s rights has had to come a tad lower. And I know that the women’s rights that I would have wanted to see fully in a new constitution are going to have to be vigorously fought for whether a Mugabe or Tsvangirai is in power tomorrow morning. I still hold up high my feminist values and principles which I took into the NCA. I define those and stick to them, but I adopt my strategies, alive to the context around me at any moment.

 I voted yes, because I like this new constitution. It promotes and protects women and girls’ human rights in so many ways and far much more than we have ever been protected in our national history.  I see a lot of opportunities for women’s movements to use it to gain more rights in the near and distant future.  I claim my voice as a founder of the NCA to say, I voted yes, because part of my dream and vision is now within reach. I don’t want this moment to pass. I want my son who voted for the first time today to set a new agenda for the Zimbabwe he wants. I want Andile to go to elections in a few months to choose leaders who will speak to that agenda. I don’t want him burdened by an unending conversation on one document, as if there is nothing else to talk about. More importantly, I want him to be spared the agony of seeing and hearing the same people spewing hatred, intolerance and violating his rights. As I told him before he voted, this constitution is about you and your rights, not about those men.

Letter to my mother

There isn’t a single bottle of perfume on your dressing table. Not even French lace talcum powder that I associated you with in my childhood. There is only one boring piece of some nameless pink soap in the bathroom. Not your usual large collection of fragrant soaps. The bubble bath is gone. Nobody buys or uses it anymore. You always smelled beautifully. I loved sidling up to you and inhaling your perfume. Growing up, I used to think that since we shared the same size hips, and some looks, I would grow up to be as elegant as you were. It didn’t rub off. You were always clean, smart and fragrant. Effortlessly. Everyone else’s mother looked dowdy and un-bathed next to you.

Your earrings and necklaces are gone from your bedside drawers. We gave them all away. Those who got this inheritance don’t quite wear it like you, a slightly awry necklace here, earrings too fashionable for that one. On you it always was perfect.

Your beautiful house still looks beautiful. Just the way you left it. Well sort of. Mandlovu sweeps, scrubs and disinfects it every day. Just the way you like it. Everyone now runs their finger over the furniture, checking for dust. If we pick up a speck, we worry, and quickly get the yellow duster! Even the children know to clean up, just in case you come in and see the dirty walls, dishes in the sink, or  disorganized wardrobes. Sadly we are slacking on some of your housekeeping rules. I now see cups mixed up with dishes. Drinking glasses  in the same water as greasy pans. I shriek at my sons and daughter in law in horror – a bread knife dunked in water  - complete with its wooden handle!  Sorry ma. I am trying. Some standards were just too high for our lot.

We have started drawing the curtains though, and leaving them drawn all day! Come rain come sunshine. You used to hate that. I have finally won the war on this one. I told you, the whole point we bought a North facing house was so that the sunshine could stream in through those big windows in the morning. I kept telling you that the sunshine was supposed to make us all happier, sunnier, more cheerful. You were bothered about the sun burning your sofas and discolouring them. So we fought each time I came home. I would draw the curtains apart, you would draw them back together, casting a shadow over those pretty green and butter-cup walls. Sorry mummy. We do protect the sofas up with throw overs. I hope that makes you happy?

Your garden had become overgrown with weeds. The hedges were too long. And the shrubs had grown into giant trees. All in one year. We trimmed them all on your birthday, December 24^th. We mowed the unwieldy lawn too. I hope you like the new roses we planted. We had to uproot the old pink ones because they didn’t look so beautiful. Sisi Maggie came to inspect the garden after New Year’s. She said it is beautiful. She will tell you more about it.

I am sorry I haven’t been going to church as consistently as I should have. You taught me and my children to love God, and the Methodist church.  I love the singing. I love the familiar rituals and liturgy. The fellowship is a blessing. I look for you in the pews, among all the red blouses, and you are not here. I go to Gweru Central more than my local because I keep hoping you will walk through that door and sit with your fellow Golden Girls. But you are no longer inside the church, and I don’t know how to pray and sing without you. Hymn 191, your favourite, makes me weep. So you will forgive me if I spend six weeks without going to a service. It is hard to keep up my faith and hope. It is even harder to find the verses and chapters in the Bible when you are not here to quickly turn the pages to the right section.  

You will also be disappointed to know that I haven’t learnt the art of speaking in a low voice. Mum, you have only been gone a year. It is early days yet. You used to cringe when dad’s side of the family got together and we shouted at the tops of our voice. “Hayi, MaKaranga bakithi!” you would cringe. I haven’t put it in any of my resolutions because I know I will fail miserably. You in contrast were the epitome of measured calmness. Maybe I should hold you accountable for not passing on enough of your good genes to me?   

I don’t know how I have survived this whole year without you. But I have. Over the last year, people have said a lot of trite little things like; oh she had lived a full life. Oh she has gone to a better place. Time will heal your pain. I don’t know what to think of all these things. Actually I do know what I think. They are not helpful! You are my mother, the one who gave me life, and my bearings.  You were my true North. I am lost. I don’t know what to do with myself. I wanted you to live to 200 years. I want you here, and not in some invisible “better place”. I still want to smell your perfume each morning as you come to tell me you are going off to your shop. And I expect to see you walk through that door each evening, dog tired but happy to put up your feet. I want to sing and pray with you. I still need you to show me how to cook sweet potatoes, rice with peanut butter and “road runner chickens”. My children need to call you to tell you they passed their exams. Today Andile passed his A Levels, and he had no grand- mother to call and celebrate with him. Collen is doing well in University and we need you at his graduation. I am expecting my second grand child and we need you here to help us raise your great grandchildren.  So I don’t want to be told that you have gone to a better place, where we can’t see you and enjoy your love.

Today, I will not say those trite things to you or to myself. I love you mummy. I miss you. The children miss you. I bought you the new Chanel perfume in a black bottle. I am keeping it for you. I am buying hats for you and wearing them.  I am keeping the houses clean, the way you want them. I am trying to raise the children the way you would have done it. I am trying to be a good person. Not a religious zealot. As you always said, “it doesn’t matter how matter how many times you say God this, or church that, just be a good human being to other human beings. That is all we are required to be”. I don’t know how I am doing on that score.

I will plant more flowers in both our gardens because I know you love flowers and flowers remind me of you. Today, I will sing Hymn 191, and I will cry. I will pray. And cry some more.  Then I will draw the curtains, and hopefully the sun will be out and it will stream through. And cheer me up.

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.