I’ve lived in the United States for over two decades. If I were in my fifties, perhaps that would not mean much. Since I am currently basking in the naïve sunshine of my mid-twenties that means a lot.
I left my country when I was three. After immigrating to the west and having my accent beaten out of me, I opted for a neutral tone, and very big vocabulary. I excelled in school, went to college, then graduate school.
As I venture into the years that will define my life, those marked by career, marriage, and family, I come across identity issues every day.
When my sister calls my hair “nappy” instead of “kinky”, I think of the ever-boiling natural hair debates. (What is good hair anyway?)
When I struggle with some skinny jeans with no interest in going past my exceptionally wide hips, I am sadly reminded that consumer fashion is not made for me.
When I scan the pots and pots of foundation in the drugstore, because let’s be real I can’t afford the good stuff yet, all I see is a sea of peachy, creamy, pale-ish muck.
When I fill out a job application form I bounce back and forth between African-American, and other.
I am not of this country.
Yes, I was raised here, my skin has adjusted to the climate here, I bought my first pair of glasses here, made friends, fell in and out of love here, but I am not of this country.
Everyday I am reminded that as an immigrant I am merely tolerated but not accepted. My presence is monitored, examined, and suspect because I left another country, a place where I was born and deigned to cross onto American shores.
I am told I am not entitled to anything, not just because my skin is dark, but also because my name-sound is unfamiliar.
So, if I am not of this place, and it is not mine by birth, why does my homeland treat me like a second-class citizen? I have been gone so long that my conversation is seasoned by my American accent. My skin can’t figure out why there is so much heat around me, and my complexion looks like I’ve been on vacation my whole life and everybody can tell.
Being a member of the “lost” diaspora, marked by the features of my homeland, driven by the guideposts of culture I have clung to, makes self-identification hard. While I believe to my core that I am African, Africa does not embrace me.
So, if I am not American, and not African, then how can I be African-American?
With so many children being sent, and taken abroad for education, a better life, are they still African?
Is it enough to say that we are African, even though when we go back home we are told that we are western?
What characteristics count as African?
Are there characteristics, no matter how invested you are in your culture, that will revoke your African-ness?
Does being African-American, Afro-British or Afro-Italian mean that we are just not African?
Chinwe Ohanele is a lawyer in training by day, and a writer by night. Born in Nigeria, raised in California, and now living in New York, Chinwe hopes to merge her love of words, an insatiable curiosity, and dedication to the mother continent in a way that challenges the way we experience the world. She writes for Rise Africa, a blog written by a group of individuals who seek to create an atmosphere that encourages conversation between Africans on the continent and in the diaspora. Connect with them on Twitter: @riseafrica
Fungai Machirori interviews Brenda Wambui and Michael Onsando, co-founders of the Kenyan thought leadership platform Brainstorm. They recently launched a quarterly online journal with the first edition titled ‘When Women Speak’.
Can you briefly tell me when and how the idea of this journal came about and why you chose feminism as your first topic?
Brenda Wambui (BW): We had been toying with the idea of a quarterly supplement/e-book since late last year. Having published an essay a week on the Brainstorm site for six months, it felt natural as we wanted to expand our content offering and create bodies of work around issues we feel are important to the Kenyan existence.
Also, we had been getting pulled into discussions that revolved around feminism frequently and realised that there were a lot of misconceptions about feminism. So feminism was at the top of both our heads.
The articles in the journal are quite in-depth. And furthermore, the journal is distributed online. Some might argue you are preaching to the converted.
BW: You would be surprised to learn that even online, we have several people who wake up each day and disparage women just for the hell of it. People still mock and bully feminists online for having the courage to speak out. These people, too, need to see what we have written. It is easy to think that just because people are online and have internet access, they will not be sexist because they have easy access to information that can change this, but this is not the case.
About the articles being in depth; that is why we decided to do this on a quarterly basis as opposed to monthly. People can take their time to read and re-read the e-book, as the next one only comes out in three months.
Michael Onsando (MO): We really tried to keep the language simple and to the point. We hope to reach the people who still think feminism is out of reach of the ordinary citizen.
How freely do Kenyan women identify as feminists?
BW: It used to be that being a feminist was a bad thing, because as the stereotype goes, feminists are ugly and angry because no man wants them. However, with the rise of the internet, and especially social media like Facebook and Twitter, women who identify as feminists have been able to articulate what we are fighting for, which is equal rights and equal opportunities for women and men. With this increased understanding, more and more women are willing to identify as feminists.
And how freely do Kenyan men identify as feminists?
MO: Not many men identify as feminist. The feminist has been painted as a bitter single woman. Therefore, identifying as feminist creates a situation where one’s masculinity is called into question; I know mine has. And even the men who would be feminists don’t like the word, as if it is dirty and as if using it will somehow kill them. This is not to say that there are no Kenyan men that identify as feminist. They exist, and I feel dearly for them. But those against vastly outnumber those for.
There’s a poignant thought in one of the pieces: “I don’t know if our mothers think their sons are not the boys … that will hurt women. If they do, I don’t know if their fear that their daughters might be raped is equal to the fear that their sons may one day rape.” From a Kenyan perspective, what do you attribute this to?
MO: There is a lot to be said about nurture. There is a ‘boys will be boys’ attitude here. As if, from birth, the male child has been given up on. Of course, it falls back to the patriarchal nature of society. The man will continue to be allowed to do as he wills while the woman submits. This is what we are taught. This is what we learn.
And then there’s the rapist. The rapist is constructed as a faraway mythical creature that is easily identifiable by how he walks talks, smells and acts. No one dares imagine that the rapist could be well-groomed, eloquent and middle class. Yet, more often than not, he is.
BW: Women are usually the ones who are warned against many things. Almost all parents will warn their daughters against being out at night, wearing short or tight clothes, getting pregnant at an early age and instruct them to wait for sex within marriage. Yet they rarely ask themselves who is going to harm or impregnate their daughters. Is it not young men like their sons? Parents believe that their sons are not the ones raping or harassing girls; but the statistics say otherwise.
You say you seek to redefine Kenyan feminisms. However, the language of feminism remains embedded in historical and emerging American feminist rhetoric – rape culture, privilege, intersectionality, self-care – much of which is to be found in ‘When Women Speak’. Can you redefine feminism without redefining its accompanying language?
BW: I feel that there are only so many words we can invent to describe something – feminism over the years has done a great job of hashing out language and terminology, and describing what is problematic and what is not. The language used by feminists, in my opinion, is okay. What we need to do now is to contextualise the conversations to Kenya, and Africa. When you read about rape culture in New York, you may become wiser but still unable to apply it to your own existence.
MO: The thing is, we speak a western language. It is almost impossible to find ‘Africanness’ within English. And even if we manage, somehow westernisation will creep in. I think this is why a lot of African feminists struggle with language. There is something about finding one’s tongue within a language that doesn’t fully accommodate your existence that is very frustrating.
Is there space in today’s world to not identify as feminist, but yet embrace its ideals?
BW: I encounter this argument a lot and it saddens me because many people want equal rights and equal opportunities for men and women, but do not want to be identified as feminists, probably due to misinformation and negative stereotypes. That is why we sought to (re)define feminism in our e-book. Perhaps once people are well informed about what feminism hopes to achieve, they will more easily identify with it.
MO: I think the idea of identity these days is used to skirt around many issues and to alienate others. There are presumptions that come about with identity and that’s why many people chose to, or not to, identify as many things – particularly as feminists. What’s more important to me is what you stand for. If you’re standing on the side that fights for justice then, I find, I hardly care what you decide to identify as.
Fungai Machirori is a blogger, editor, poet and researcher. She runs Zimbabwe’s first web-based platform for women, Her Zimbabwe, and is an advocate for using social media for consciousness-building among Zimbabweans. Connect with her on Twitter.
In 1987, South African Paul Morris went to Angola as a reluctant conscript soldier, where he experienced the fear and filth of war. Twenty-five years later, in 2012, Paul returned to Angola, and embarked on a 1500-kilometre cycle trip, solo and unsupported, across the country. His purpose was to see Angola in peacetime, to replace the war map in his mind with a more contemporary peace map, to exorcise the ghosts of war once and for all.
Shifting skilfully between present and past, ‘Back to Angola’ chronicles Paul’s epic journey, from Cuito Cuanavale to the remnants of his unit’s base in northern Namibia, and vividly recreates his experiences as a young soldier caught up in a war in a foreign land.
Here’s an excerpt from the book:
I wonder how fucked I’d be if something bad happened. My self rescue plan has always been to hitch a lift to a place where I can find help. There’s no traffic on this road, this bush track; no prospect of rescue. It will be better once I reach Cuchi and the tar road starts again. I hope the advice I’ve received about the tar starting again is accurate, not because I’m not enjoying this quiet track, but because the isolation of it could put me in a difficult situation if I am unable to keep cycling through illness. I contemplate phoning Martin, my doctor friend, for advice. It seems alarmist so I don’t. I battle on alone.
As I move further into the floodplain, I come to the first of several river crossings. A series of channels cut the road. If I were on an unloaded bike I would simply ride across, but I don’t want to risk a soaking, especially because of my camera equipment. A more critical consideration is that a fall could result in injury. I get off the bike and take off my shoes and socks. The water is cold and clear and I can see what I’m placing my bare feet on as I wheel the bike across. On the other side I lay the bike down and put my shoes and socks back on. I repeat the process again at the next crossing.
The road to Cuchi. (Pic: Paul Morris)
There’s a man walking next to the road as I put on my shoes after a third crossing. As we talk I realise how weak I am. I struggle to form words and can’t seem to think straight. I’m in worse shape than I thought I was. I sit for a while on the side of the road, feeling frustrated at my slow progress. Hauling myself to my feet, I walk over to a little ford and kneel next to the river to splash my face. I feel like lying in that cold water and letting it wash away whatever poison is debilitating me.
The sun is lowering in the west. I’ve long resigned myself to the fact that I won’t make Cuchi. I’ve been pushing myself, but I can’t go on like this for much longer. It looks like I’m going to be spending the night in the bush. I start riding again and as I crawl along the broken gravel I scan the bush for a potential campsite. I haven’t seen many landmine signs on this road, but the lack of red-and-white warning signs doesn’t mean that there aren’t mines.
This should be a relatively simple exercise, but my brain seems to have slowed to match the cadence of my fatigued legs. It’s so much effort to think about camping that I keep moving. Then a village emerges in a clearing. The quiet of the bush is replaced by the sounds of settlement. The murmur of many conversations is punctuated occasionally by laughter or dogs barking or a call across from one homestead to another. Woodsmoke trickles up from cooking huts made from mud bricks and thatch, the sharp oily scent of it familiar to me.
I call a boa tarde [good afternoon] to some people talking in front of a homestead. It’s a relief to stop here where the track has begun to turn to sand in places. I’m too tired to power through it and too weak to armour my pride against a fall. Two men take leave of the women and walk slowly from the little group of huts that squat behind the log palisade to where I’ve stopped. When they reach me one man hangs back. The first man is obviously interested in finding out about me. We go through the usual dance of words, some comprehended, some not, and he grasps that I am a turista. Sun-hat man is scowling and muttering in the background. The first man says something back to him. I point to my tent and do my best to convey that I’d like to camp somewhere for the night. Sun-hat is very obviously unhappy about my being here and when he grasps that I want to spend the night his muttering becomes louder and more animated. The first man turns to him and snaps at him. I pick up the word ‘turista’. Sun-hat slopes back towards the homestead complaining as he goes, ‘Problema?’ I ask, starting to become anxious. ‘Não, não,’ says the first man. ‘Não problema.’ It’s the first time I’ve encountered anything like this open hostility. Should I continue and find a wild camp tonight?
I gather that I have to ask permission from the soba, whose homestead I’m given directions to. A young man is tasked with guiding me through the maze of huts. As I haul my loaded bike through the sand, a sow and some piglets scuttle out of my way. There’s the buzz of dinner time about the place. I smell pap and unidentifiable cooking aromas mingled with people sweat and goat shit. Chickens and goats escape between the huts as a handful of wide-eyed, snotty-nosed children follow me at a cautious distance. The old soba has his khaki bush jacket draped over his shoulders. His hair is nearly white and his eyes are milky with age. It’s instantly clear that my staying in the village is beyond question – he is so nonchalant about it, it’s as if I were a regular visitor who passed through every week. A pair of kitchen chairs is brought for us and we sit together next to a little rectangular hut. Conversation runs out within minutes, but we remain sitting together anyway.
The soba (4th from right) and his family. (Pic: Paul Morris)
I say something about his lovely orange tree. It seems ancient and no less fecund for the years. He says something to a boy of about nine, who is quickly into the highest branches of the tree with the skill and fearlessness of a boy of his age. In a few minutes I’m presented with five oranges. I thank the boy and the old man and begin to eat, not without some concern for my stomach. The sourness of the unripe orange on my tongue is eclipsed by the severe stinging of my sunburnt lips. I battle on gamely until it is finished. To reciprocate the old man’s hospitality, I give him the remains of a loaf of bread I bought in Menongue.
After a while the soba leaves me to attend to some other business. A small gallery of curious young residents has formed at a respectful distance from where I’m sitting. ‘Hello,’ I say to the gathered children. I’m answered by a quiet spread of big eyes. One whispers something to an older girl and she replies. Silence. ‘Como estás?’ I ask. Shy giggles. I smile. Little coughs ripple back and forth through the dust-whitened band. Many of the children’s scalps present scabs caused by some or other ailment. Gradually the members of the little band drift off, called for dinner at their respective homes. The sun sets into the forest and in the remaining twilight a girl of about twelve, wearing a flared skirt, arrives with a grass handbrush and a bowl of water and disappears into the hut outside of which I’m sitting. She sweeps the beaten-earth floor and then sprinkles water on it to keep the dust down. The old man indicates that this is my room for the night.
Close to where I sit there’s a small solar panel about the size of an open laptop charging a mobile phone. The sun is down so the phone’s owner, a man in his twenties, collects it and tramps off again down the sandy lane. Someone else puts the panel away for the night. It happens without fuss or discussion, one of the many daily routines that have claimed my hosts for now.
A little while later I roll out my mattress and sleeping bag and wonder where I’ll find the strength to continue on my journey tomorrow. Somewhere a generator chunters power to a thumping music system and children shriek their delight. I lie down, insert my earplugs and, with the sickly sweet smell of the dust floor in my nostrils, drift into a dead sleep.
How is it possible that we know the correct behaviour or the healthiest practice and yet we don’t follow it? Is it human nature or just a lack of discipline?
I’m guilty of this when it comes to my weight. No amount of knowledge I acquire or books I read can help me get off my roller-coaster ride of weight gain and loss.
I see teenage pregnancy in South Africa in the same light. Having loads of information about it is not enough to change our behaviour. One would think that young people today have enough tools to avoid unwanted pregnancy: contraception is available and sexual health information is a fingertip or a cell phone away. But many girls still fall pregnant before finishing high school. In 2009 alone, more than 49 000 schoolgirls, mostly black and poor, gave birth in South Africa, according to the United Nations Population Fund. This not only endangers their education and their future, it also places a huge burden on their families.
(Pic: AFP)
That number of 49 000 pregnant schoolgirls means that as many boys and men impregnated them. Hey, it takes two to tango.
Why does this happen? What perpetuates this cycle?
An insightful 2009 study by researchers Jewkes, Morrell and Christofides aptly summed it up: “Teenage pregnancy is not just an issue of reproductive health and young women’s bodies but, rather, one of its causes and consequences, rooted in women’s gendered social environment.”
Sad but true. Our environment influences young women hugely. In some South African communities, young women are pressured to prove their fertility at a young age, and so they fall pregnant, simultaneously risking contracting sexually transmitted infections and HIV.
And if that’s not enough, they are often left to raise the babies alone because the father is “unknown” – meaning he is either married, or not ready to assume this responsibility, or does not want a child, or is still too young so he gets to continue with his education – while she (the expecting mother) likely drops out of school to care for the baby.
In addition, young women have to wrestle with the societal expectations that they must be conservative and passive.
We are also expected to prove our social status – to look a certain way, wear certain clothes, and be seen possessing certain material things. Dating someone older to provide these status symbols or necessities seems the easier route – no matter the cost.
However, experience has taught me otherwise: nothing is ever for mahala, meaning there are no freebies in life. What you do today will determine your future.
Among teenagers, girls have eight times the HIV infection rate than their male peers.
Girls aged 15-19 are more likely than boys the same age to have sex, and sex with older men.
Condom use has dropped significantly among young people.
To change this gut-wrenching reality, we must ask some hard questions:
Can we honestly see progress in South Africa when so many girls still fall pregnant and/or contract HIV daily?
Can we not take advantage of the booming social networks and other creative platforms to create safe spaces for dialogue around the real reasons why young black girls are falling pregnant today?
We should change our way of dealing with this sensitive social issue. Let us be less prescriptive about the young girls’ behaviour and meet them where they are.
Hearing their voices when messages and programmes are designed will help us address the real issues behind teenage pregnancy in South Africa.
To walk the talk, I am developing an interactive session for a group of high school students aged 14-17 in Braamfontein, Johannesburg. We use applied drama and theatre methods to build a platform for dialogue around teenage pregnancy. I’ll keep you posted.
Zandi Mqwathi is a confident, innovative young leader and a former radio personality with a zeal and drive to use her craft and experiences to educate and empower other young women. She writes for Countdown to Zero, a Unicef/Inter Press Service project.
Methodist church reverend Canaan Banana (left) and his wife Janet share a moment with then Prime Minister Robert Mugabe (centre) and his wife Sally five days before independence celebrations. (Pic: STF)
I wake up on election day in April 1980. Black Zimbabweans are learning to vote for the first time. It’s early in the morning. With no experience of voting, I reflect on the risk of spoiling the ballot paper. I feel like a child going to school for the first time. No one I know can give me an idea of what a ballot paper will look like.
Triangle Sugar Estate in south-eastern Zimbabwe can be a lonely place. It is just you and a few familiar faces, fellow teachers and cane cutters who are usually covered in black soot from the burning sugar cane.
When they cut cane, they don’t talk. Layers of black ash cover their faces. Perhaps they feel humiliated by their appearance. It is better to meet them in their clean states, not in sugar cane cutting gear. You just wave at them and leave them to meet their daily tonnage of harvested sugar cane. The stacks of cane they cut decide their earnings. There is no monthly salary. It is hard labour.
My friends and I have asked the company for permission to campaign for the Patriotic Front. It is granted, but on one condition: if the party of “terrorists” loses, we will all lose our jobs. We take the risk, print party T-shirts with party slogans for sale, and raise enough money for our fragile campaign.
In our small cars, we go from section to section, campaigning, making house visits and small speeches. No rallies. We walk and whisper the new political wind of change into all ears.
Then the day of the rally comes, and the big men arrive: Dzingai Mutumbuka, Dzikamai Mavhaire, Nolan Makombe, Basopo-Moyo, Nelson Mawema and other previously banned politicians.
A new destiny
There are speeches, and more speeches, and promises. Then there is spontaneous dancing and singing, men and women in a frenzy at the possibility of freedom, a new destiny.
With our poverty haunting us, hiring buses is a luxury out of our reach. People walk long distances to Gibo Stadium. That is the first rally of the “terrorists”, as the sugar company calls them. Thousands pack the stadium, singing and dancing. It is a joyous occasion.
It is the arrival of our dignity, freedom, a new self, a new nation, a fresh map of our destiny written in our own ink, even if that ink might be our blood.
Soon after that, on a Tuesday morning, I am at the garage to get my car fixed. The young white lady serving me has a small radio on her desk. She is slow to serve me. It is news time.
She fiddles frantically with the radio knob to get the best reception to listen to the election results before attending to me. She tells me that “Bishop” Abel Tendekayi Muzorewa is going to win. “Such a holy and gentle man,” she says.
But, in a few minutes, the British election official belts out the results.
The woman breaks down, crying. I try to help her up, to console her, as she shouts: “Terrorists! Terrorists! The British have let us down! Terrorists! I am leaving! Terrorists!” As I try to calm her down, her boss enters and takes her away. He thinks I have offended her. I tell him it was the election results. He nods and makes out my receipt. I pay and get my car keys.
A few days later, on April 18, the party does not seem to have come to an end. Far off, in Harare, Bob Marley graces the independence celebrations overseen by Robert Mugabe and Prince Charles. It’s an event of two Bobs and the Wailers.
My friends and I are no longer enemies of the sugar company. We are the new heroes. The threats of dismissal are rescinded.
We are invited to all the formerly prohibited venues for celebration. The sugar company buys all the chickens available from local butcheries. Cows and bulls are donated to the festivities. And the party goes on for what seems like eternity.
The dancing! Oh, the dancing! The eating. The music! The orderly chaos! One man, a Mr Chikanga, challenges anyone to a chicken-eating contest. He devours five large roasted birds in a few minutes.
Another man, primary school teacher Mr Chidhumo, the father of infamous convicted murderer and robber Stephen Chidhumo, dances until he breaks his leg. He ignores the pain until we call an ambulance and he is forced to abandon the party for the hospital.
He insists on taking his whisky glass with him to the hospital, but the ambulance driver will have none of it. The driver grabs the glass and drinks it himself. It is celebration time, and no one wants to be left out. All is forgiven.
April 18, the day a new national flower was born, still lingers in my imagination.
It was a day of hope and pride, the arrival of a new self, a new being, a fresh flower of our human dignity. Prime Minister Robert Mugabe’s “swords-to-ploughshares” speech enkindles our hope further.
Like the Bulawayo statue, we “look to the future” with an incisive sense of aspiration in our hearts.
The birds of hope have deposited new eggs in our hearts of hope, a new destiny is possible, we say to our silent but smiling hearts.
I wake up on election day in April 1980. Black Zimbabweans are learning to vote for the first time. It’s early in the morning. With no experience of voting, I reflect on the risk of spoiling the ballot paper. I feel like a child going to school for the first time. No one I know can give me an idea of what a ballot paper will look like.
Triangle Sugar Estate in south-eastern Zimbabwe can be a lonely place. It is just you and a few familiar faces, fellow teachers and cane cutters who are usually covered in black soot from the burning sugar cane.
When they cut cane, they don’t talk. Layers of black ash cover their faces. Perhaps they feel humiliated by their appearance. It is better to meet them in their clean states, not in sugar cane cutting gear. You just wave at them and leave them to meet their daily tonnage of harvested sugar cane. The stacks of cane they cut decide their earnings. There is no monthly salary. It is hard labour.
My friends and I have asked the company for permission to campaign for the Patriotic Front. It is granted, but on one condition: if the party of “terrorists” loses, we will all lose our jobs. We take the risk, print party T-shirts with party slogans for sale, and raise enough money for our fragile campaign.
In our small cars, we go from section to section, campaigning, making house visits and small speeches. No rallies. We walk and whisper the new political wind of change into all ears.
Then the day of the rally comes, and the big men arrive: Dzingai Mutumbuka, Dzikamai Mavhaire, Nolan Makombe, Basopo-Moyo, Nelson Mawema and other previously banned politicians.
A new destiny
There are speeches, and more speeches, and promises. Then there is spontaneous dancing and singing, men and women in a frenzy at the possibility of freedom, a new destiny.
With our poverty haunting us, hiring buses is a luxury out of our reach. People walk long distances to Gibo Stadium. That is the first rally of the “terrorists”, as the sugar company calls them. Thousands pack the stadium, singing and dancing. It is a joyous occasion.
It is the arrival of our dignity, freedom, a new self, a new nation, a fresh map of our destiny written in our own ink, even if that ink might be our blood.
Soon after that, on a Tuesday morning, I am at the garage to get my car fixed. The young white lady serving me has a small radio on her desk. She is slow to serve me. It is news time.
She fiddles frantically with the radio knob to get the best reception to listen to the election results before attending to me. She tells me that “Bishop” Abel Tendekayi Muzorewa is going to win. “Such a holy and gentle man,” she says.
But, in a few minutes, the British election official belts out the results.
The woman breaks down, crying. I try to help her up, to console her, as she shouts: “Terrorists! Terrorists! The British have let us down! Terrorists! I am leaving! Terrorists!” As I try to calm her down, her boss enters and takes her away. He thinks I have offended her. I tell him it was the election results. He nods and makes out my receipt. I pay and get my car keys.
A few days later, on April 18, the party does not seem to have come to an end. Far off, in Harare, Bob Marley graces the independence celebrations overseen by Robert Mugabe and Prince Charles. It’s an event of two Bobs and the Wailers.
My friends and I are no longer enemies of the sugar company. We are the new heroes. The threats of dismissal are rescinded.
We are invited to all the formerly prohibited venues for celebration. The sugar company buys all the chickens available from local butcheries. Cows and bulls are donated to the festivities. And the party goes on for what seems like eternity.
The dancing! Oh, the dancing! The eating. The music! The orderly chaos! One man, a Mr Chikanga, challenges anyone to a chicken-eating contest. He devours five large roasted birds in a few minutes.
Another man, primary school teacher Mr Chidhumo, the father of infamous convicted murderer and robber Stephen Chidhumo, dances until he breaks his leg. He ignores the pain until we call an ambulance and he is forced to abandon the party for the hospital.
He insists on taking his whisky glass with him to the hospital, but the ambulance driver will have none of it. The driver grabs the glass and drinks it himself. It is celebration time, and no one wants to be left out. All is forgiven.
April 18, the day a new national flower was born, still lingers in my imagination.
It was a day of hope and pride, the arrival of a new self, a new being, a fresh flower of our human dignity. Prime Minister Robert Mugabe’s “swords-to-ploughshares” speech enkindles our hope further.
Like the Bulawayo statue, we “look to the future” with an incisive sense of aspiration in our hearts.
The birds of hope have deposited new eggs in our hearts of hope, a new destiny is possible, we say to our silent but smiling hearts.
Chenjerai Hove is a Zimbabwean writer living in exile in Europe. This piece was first published in the Mail & Guardian’s Zimbabwe edition.
