Maravi

(TALKZIMBABWE) Kruger in Harare: Some things never change

Kruger in Harare: Some things never change
Donette Read Kruger
Sat, 25 Oct 2008 10:33:00 +0000

THE Zimbabwe Guardian sub-editor, Donette Read Kruger is visiting Zimbabwe. In her Harare diary she will give an account of the country she loves very much, a country she was born and grew up in. This is the first in a series of reports she will give before she returns in three weeks.

REPORT NO. 2

AT last the antibiotics have kicked in and, after a pedicure and a massage, I am feeling much better. I met a young lady who always longed to be a beautician but with only 4 0-levels and no other job her chances are limited. As a result I gave her my in-flight reading, a precious manual on Champissage (Head Massage) and a bottle of moisturiser. It is refreshing how young Zimbabweans are so anxious to learn and, with a little encouragement, will excel at anything!

It has been a long week with so much excitement going on, probably generated by the fact that I will be returning to the UK soon and there is not much time to see everyone now, or go anywhere. My visit is in meltdown!

My one unfulfilled yern was to visit Tete, where I have heard that the shops are the same as any you will find in SA or Botswana, and the beach is not unlike Beira Beach, but it was a non-starter because of my single entry visa. So, when you visit on your new foreign passport, even if initially you have no intention of going into any neighbouring country, request a triple entry visa. What righteous woman could ever refuse a shopping trip - especially over the border? I cannot afford another £35 visa fee to get back into Zimbabwe this trip.

However, Tete is something I can now look forward to upon my return in 2009. If no one else wants to go with me I could always choose to travel by ET from Chisipite, and as I have already travelled by ET from Harare to Beira it would be equally challenging. I think the furthest I will get to during this visit, because of the time factor, is therefore, Nyanga – Deo Volente! (for the uninitiated that means God Willing!) where I may get to enjoy a swim in the ice cold Troutbeck Lake, walk in a pine forest, crunch apples, a game of golf or trout fishing while breathing in fresh mountain air, and all because it is still possible to do these things.

A child’s birthday party erupted on Sunday, at which everyone arrived carrying a plate of food, a bowl of pudding, a packet of sugar or a pint of milk - just like in the old days. Some things will never change, and even walking barefoot on hot tarmac to visit a neighbour, was a vaguely familiar experience - although I had not been to her house before. After seven years in the UK I can still count on only one hand how many neighbours I had visited - without an official invitation - the five Ngwenya sisters in Kilburn!

Something of a ritual has been listening to someone’s irate husband returning late every night and blasting his horn until someone in the big house stirs and, as would a zombie, walks out to the electric gates to automatically drag back the heavy sections of metal so the man of the house can drive in and park. These moonlight scenarios will no doubt continue until there are more regular supplies of electricity and the remote activates the electric gates. These disruptive noise levels in the still of the tropical nights would be totally unacceptable in the UK, but here it’s been a way of life since the first car rolled over the Limpopo. What child raised in Africa does not recall having to open the gates for dad, at least once in their lifetime? Some things never change.

This afternoon there is an infant’s baby shower to which all the women will dutifully attend in support of their sister, while the men converge on somebody’s house to watch an interstate rugby match on DSTV, between the Sharks (KwaZulu Natal) and the Bulls (Gauteng). Each man will leave home with his sons all carrying a plate of snacks instead of the legendary crate of beers. Zimbabweans have always been more God-aligned when the future is uncertain and these days it is no different, so crates of beers are a thing of the past. Maybe a six pack, yes, but certainly no crates this day!

Suddenly I realise I have aged, simply because the angelic children I meet politely shake my hand and smile at this elderly visitor from the UK whom they all address as Gogo – regardless of whether they are black or white. Being classified a visitor in the land of my birth is something I find disconcerting, but it is only temporary because once I have my TEFL Certificate (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) I will return.

School children here of all ages differ vastly in their behaviour towards their younger siblings whom they obviously genuinely care for, and I found this quite startling compared to the children in the UK that you and I have come to observe curiously – albeit at a distance. Zimbabwe’s youth actually respect their elders, and you can see that Life itself has become very precious in Africa, especially nowadays where the virus of HIV/Aids may stealthily attack even the most innocent. Whereas in the UK its heroin and crack cocaine that will rob you of a relative or a friend, here one never knows when one will be left alone, reliant on a classmate or a mere acquaintance to dry one’s tears.

The teenage girls are out from school and they emerged from Oriel Girls’ High School looking quite sophisticated in their uniform white shirts, turquoise skirts and blazers. It is Friday afternoon, the Headmistress has gone home and school is over for the weekend.

There is another new construction erupting north of Harare Drive, just off the Enterprise Road. Someone suggested it might be a new hotel? The land has been cleared; the water pipes are stacked alongside the boundary and the various contracting boards are up - flaunting their luck at having secured the services of the contractors. Once things are settled here, it is doubtful whether there will be enough accommodation for those returning from the Diaspora. Jobs maybe, but housing?

I think it will be like 1980 all over again when anxious and relieved freedom fighters returned from the bush, or wherever else they found themselves on far flung shores. But then again, some never returned because they had made new lives for themselves, but life went on without them and we merged into one nation. It may be a different generation, but it is the same nation, even though some are just as far flung today.

Ours today is an expectant nation that finds itself waiting at yet another junction on the highway to Zimbabwe’s future. What I have found fascinating is how patient and resilient Zimbabweans are because, regardless of the state of the nation, individuals are following their visions through in laying down today the foundations of their dreams for tomorrow.

When I left here in 2000, shortly after the land invasions, for a six-month sojourn overseas I recall horses being dumped at the Lion & Cheetah Park for fodder. How surprised have I been then to see many horses grazing in corrals around Harare! The Lion & Cheetah Park is still operating so remember to include this destination on your itinerary if you don’t have time to take your children to Hwange.

I learned long ago that the poor will always be with us, and every nation will always be divided into “the haves” and “the have nots”, and there will always be those characters amongst us who live by the rule that “What’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is mine too,” no matter which part of the world you live in. It was no surprise therefore to learn yesterday that some idiot businessman had left his laptop and briefcase locked in his car at Borrowdale Village and on his return was devastated to discover that the doors had been jammied and everything stolen. In some suburbs of the UK someone would have merely thrown a brick through the window. (It is interesting that in such peaceful surroundings he felt blasé enough to leave his equipment on the car seat which is why the theft must have come as a total shock!)

We had French toast for breakfast this morning, you know, Sheffield’s Eggie-bread? Well, each time I asked someone at the breakfast table to pass the honey I was reminded “It is syrup…not honey” the difference being that it was made from pure cane sugar, inverted to glucose and fructose with honey, toffee and maple flavouring added. No wonder it tasted just like honey! There is another industry one should get into here – the food chain! If only keeping up with the food industry had always been as much a priority as keeping up with the fashion industry!

Bread is currently US$1.20 a loaf, but many have invested in bread making machines and bake their own. These average between US$200 and US$350 for the most expensive that work through all the power cuts. Yesterday an acquaintance found fresh packeted milk at US$3, and then we found it at US$1 per litre - provided you took along your own chigubhu! The milk is so creamy that you cannot freeze it. You learn fast to boil the water you intend to drink because the water table is so low that gunge is accumulating in the pipes but its fine to bath or shower in. These are little things in life here that are time consuming, but the quality of life makes it so much more worth while in the end.

I drove past a friend’s house that she sold six years ago before she moved to the UK. The plants she had so lovingly chosen are now mature and “her garden” is looking like some exotic parkland. She is so unhappy in the UK and wishes she had never left. If she saw her precious garden today she would howl in despair.

Like a dry sponge I am soaking up the endless warm summer night skies scattered with the equivalent of Swarovski Crystals before my departure, the same skies that will soon be rent apart by loud claps of thunder and forked lightening. But every Zimbabwean knows that the sooner the rains arrive the sooner the rains will depart, and so it is best to stop wishing for rain and instead patiently wait for nature to take her course. There have been enough droughts over the years.

The crickets are in tune this evening, or are they? Like the familiar keys of the mbira, they individually pitch their notes into the velvet darkness and yet, just as the mbira, so their unco-ordinated song is still definitely that familiar chorus of southern Africa you and I each grew up with.

Unhesitatingly a frog hops across the dry grass, away from the veranda lights, absolutely confident of where he is going, leaping into the darkness, and I wonder again at the simplicity of nature, whereas I, on the other hand, am already wondering how I will learn to cope without my Broadband and weekend newspapers when I return to settle in 2009.

But, I am being silly because soon, when it all comes together here in the land of my birth, surely The Carphone Warehouse, Orange, Virgin and O2 as well as other familiar cellphone companies will arrive en masse – each vying for our precious custom – and offering, along with free laptops, free Broadband!

posted by MrK @ 6:49 AM