22/07/08 - Update 7
It has been 4 days since I left Zimbabwe, and I am sitting in Joburg airport waiting for my flight to London via Cape Town. The image that most stands out in my mind from leaving Bulawayo, is the tops of the sheaths of long yellow grass, golden in the sunshine, reflective, swaying in the breeze, as if waving goodbye. We flew to the airport, too fast… I tensed my muscles and bit my tongue, saying nothing, praying for the traffic police to be on the road today, to slow us down, even for a few seconds… praying that a cow wouldn’t decide to be in the middle of the road, since all the fences along the airport road have long since been stolen… and praying that an enormous pothole wouldn’t throw us off-balance at the understandably illegal speed we were going.
Leaving is always traumatic, though this time particularly so. Over the past 2 years, I’ve always known when I’d next be back. This time, when someone asks me, the truth is that I really don’t know when the next time will be. Yes, there have been times I’ve said this in the past, knowing that it would be within a year. And yes, I’ll probably be back sooner than I expect. But this time, I don’t know, I can only hope.
My last day at home is always spent rushing around and wheeling and dealing and doing all that I can in the final bit of time I have left. Thursday was Opah’s birthday. I went out to her house in Magwegwe, in the western suburbs that afternoon, taking a top-up of food, and some chocolates that I had brought from London for her birthday. We took Sindiwe, her grandchild, to pre-school that day too, and enrolled her for the next term starting in September. School fees in other parts of the world are a fairly straight forward concept… in Zim, they are now charging even pre-school fees in foreign currency. Though the fee in South African Rand is not alone… it is accompanied by a grocery list which is where the major expense comes in. We rushed around town that day, managing to get almost everything on the list (at a high price), including rice, and tea, and biscuits. In fact, the only things we didn’t manage to find were exercise books and one kilo of sugar.
It seems that 2 days before I leave is always a party. The night prior however, is always a little solemn. Wednesday night, I went out to my crazies in Bulawayo. I am always the youngest there, by about 15 years, and the oldest is usually in her 60’s. It tends to be a night of delicious finger food, too much alcohol and cigarettes, and a lot of dancing around the table where the music ranges from religious Jewish prayers to Edith Piaf, and Simon and Garfunkle.
Opah’s niece came to our house on Thursday night… to tell Opah that her mother in the rural areas is starving and to please send food. Opah had wanted to bring her mother in to have her eyes checked out by the ophthalmologist in town. Same story as usual though… no transport. That evening Thomas was going to accompany her niece the 8 or 9 kilometre walk back to where she lives in town (“so that she doesn’t get raped,” said Opah), and then he would walk all the way back again since there is no transport. I drove her home instead… wondering what most people do, what their fate is, and how our society, which has held together for so long, even under the enormous strain of the political and economic situation, is starting to bend under the immense pressure.
And then the next morning, I woke up, packed, and went to the airport where a hundred primary school children dressed in red school uniforms, had come on a field trip to see a plane land and take-off… a phenomenon I have witnessed only in Zimbabwe. And when we had boarded the plane, ready to take off, I watched those faces, dressed in red, smiling wide, revealing shiny white teeth, and waving in excitement as they watched from the runway, and I watched the tips of golden grass reflective in the sunlight and waving in the breeze, and the first tears began; tears for the uncertainty of what is to come in Zimbabwe, tears for the uncertainty of when I will be back there. And I felt a kind of confused guilt, that I am so privileged to be able to up and leave, (my that sounds trite) but above all, I was feeling a love of home, a home that I was leaving, a home in which I might never live, but one that I will always feel is home… or the closest thing to home, for a global nomad like me.
