Most people have no conception at all of what it is like to be perfectly out of tune with the way the rest of the world thinks. The condemnations start to flow, when you encounter somebody like this. You are surely a victim of your own folly. You are 'arrogant', 'immature', insolent', overly fearful and overly tolerant, in turn, depending on who is addressing you, and the mood those others happen to be in at the time. You are both incredibly stupid and incredibly haughty. You presume to go you own way far too much; and yet also presume to be defiantly dependent. Who can stand those 'know nothings' -- those who come from who-knows-where and presume to tell others that their situation is 'different'; you have had other ways of experiencing the world; your own way of experiencing the life around doesn't automatically compute, for you have ways of seeing all things entirely differently?
Such was the situation of my generation -- brought up under the protective policies of Ian Smith's regime in colonial Rhodesia. Did we know that the rest of the world had moved on without us? We did not. Did we know that we were presumed racist? Certainly not at all! And I sat blithely next to Rosemary every English class, not registering that she was different from me in such a way that our relationship ought to have been strained. We were of different colours, but of the same socio-economic group, as those 'elite' enough to be able to afford housing in the suburbs. I cannot speak for Rosemary, whose father was in government, and who may have fallen into greater affluence than her everyday attitude and standard issue school uniform suggested. It was rare for my family to be able to afford something new -- whether that be a new car, a new dress, a new bridle, for a very, very old horse, or a bottle of family sized coke to share on the weekend. We kept the old R4, which received a new paint job, thanks to prison forced labour and technology. The old bridle, a hand-me-down from my half-Portuguese grandma continued to work, loaded through the generations with saddle grease. I went without the new dresses, unless relatives sent hand-me-downs, or I was the happy beneficiary of a croched dress, sold to me by a black woman, vending her wares at our gate. (The gate itself was rickety and warped; its metallic frame having received a couple of idents from one or two far too eager cars. The chicken wire that formed the body of the fence was homely and sufficient for the work it had to do.)
Such was the situation of my upbringing in Smith's Rhodesia. I loved my horse and did my school work with a modicum of compliance. My best friends at high school were Rosemary, Julie Wilson (who also had a horse), Cheryl (whose mother used to sometimes take us home from school when it was raining very hard) and Julie Atkinson, whose parents had mad Irish parties. (I was never invited to these.)
I was brought up to take one day at a time. The future would look after itself. In the afternoon, I went to exercise my horse, in the delicate heat of the early afternoon. I would come home sweaty and dirty, smelling like oil and mud. The rest of the afternoon I would spend doing my homework, until mother called me for dinner.
Dinner was a standard formula of one form of meat, a vegetable and something which we came to know of as "a starch". The starch was always the most interesting element of dinner, which we asked about first. If we had really good luck, the starch would turn out to be chips -- deep fried in a heavy saucepan, sending little waves of fragrant sunflower seeds outside the kitchen window, beckoning us. If we were unlucky, it might be mashed potato. We also ate corn some days. A very rare treat for us would be the staple diet of the majority -- mealie-meal porridge, with a side-dish of stew. To be at the receiving end of such a dish meant that my mother had been overtaken with a sudden burst of creativity. We always thanked our lucky stars for the good mood and feeling of excitement that brought us.
I was not considered stupid for my age. In fact, when they started academic streaming at the end of primary school, and then in high school, I always ultimately ended up in the topmost class. Although that was the case, it didn't cross my mind that anything could have been different, or that it meant anything. In fact, in the first year of high school, I spent an early spell within the second highest class because, it was said, that I was "shy", and given to speaking very little. It was reasoned that my confidence could be built up by being in a class that was a fraction lower than my academic abilities. I wasn't shy at all, in fact, but I distrusted authorities, whom I thought could be heavy handed. I was happy to be wherever they put me in the school, since it had no meaning anyway. What I liked to do was to drop popcorn seeds on the heads of the girls leaning over the rail, outside a classroom a floor down from where we had to wait before school. Since these girls were predominantly black, the popcorn seeds used to bounce off their springy heads, which was fascinating. When I sat in class with my schoolmates, I used to line up a whole row of popcorn seeds at the end of my desk, and then wait until the teacher wasn't looking, before flicking the seeds, with my thumb and finger, onto various of my class mates. I could only do this in English class, however, since it was one of my slacker classes, in which I was supposed to speak up about things, but never did.
When I didn't have popcorn seeds to attack my friends with, I found a solution in tearing off a page of fullscape paper, and turning pieces from the edges into little balls of paper and saliva. I would then line up this homemade ammunition in a row at the edge of my desk, and in the same manner that I used to send the popcorn flying, would flick these tasty bits of paper residue at all my friends. The key was a psychological game which involved very good timing. You couldn't be caught engaging in this provocation by the all-seeing teacher. You had to wait for a slight glance away from you, and you had to do it poker-faced.
The fun thing was when I put little bits of rolled up paper into Kerry-Anne's hair style. Kerry-Anne sat in front of me, and her hair was neatly curled around the base of her head to form a perfect gutter. It was so perfect that it could hold a lot of these bits of paper, so long as she was still. I spent about five minutes making sure that every part of Kerry'Anne's perfect hair-catchment received a little ball of paper. I had to be very patient, and hold a steady hand -- but soon it was done. Then suddenly she moved! The bits of paper flew everywhere! She said it wasn't funny; but it had been quite intriguing to see all these papers move through the air all at once.
It wasn't Smith's Rhodesia that was to blame for my abhorrent behaviour. Truth is, I didn't do it all the time in any case. Some times, I sat perfectly still, trying to focus on the subject matter of the lesson. This was easier to do in subjects like maths, physics or geography, since in these class the teachers were generally stricter, and could make you do what they said. That was the case except for the Australian teachers and some of the scripture teachers. They couldn't make you do very much, and the Aussie imports had a whiny tone, and took their umbrellas from the car with them, to avoid the impact of the rain. The female scripture teachers had too much mascara, that used to knot their eyelashes together, which was strange, and you would wonder why they did it -- I wondered this in primary school, especially. The male scripture teachers could be made fun of, because we were all girls in a girls' school, and the teachers were already uneasy. My friend Julie, the Irish Catholic, said: "We teased this priest until he started to cry. We noticed that he had a hair poking out from his fly."
And so it was in 1983, when Smith's Rhodesia had turned into Zimbabwe. The term "mampara" -- (silly fool) -- was one I had become well accustomed to, having been given it more than often from Amos, who ironed and washed up for us. I forget where I left things, and played practical jokes. I was a mampara, however, with a firmly seated notion of ethics. It was wrong not to help those in need. A woman riding ahead of us had a whole basket of tomatoes at the front of her bike. We were coming home from school and saw her lose hold of her bike and unload them all over the road. I stopped without word, and began picking them up, one by one. They were not great tomatoes but sunweathered, orange, mishapen as they were but even more so due to their catastrophe with the road. My friend Cheryl, who was riding home from school just behind me, seeing me pick up the tomatoes, joined me, until we had collected and returned them all -- about 200 of them. This black woman was grateful -- and I was ashamed that she was grateful to us. We hadn't done anything that anybody else wouldn't have done in the same situation.
"You must be Christian girls!" she exclaimed, unexpectedly. "I am also Christian. Where do you girls go to church?"
I obliged her by proving the guess to be a correct one. I said that I, for one, did. I went to a church every Sunday. The one called Kingsmead Chapel on the hill up there. Once all the merchandise had been reloaded in the basket, she separated out half a dozen of these bashed tomatoes for us, and handed them to us. "This is a gift for your mother," she said, with generous finality.
I had been given something very special -- heartfelt thanks and pleasure, which I carried home as if it were very precious cargo. I didn't know what words I would use yet, to explain the importance of these tomatoes to my mother. I'd start by telling her that these were special tomatoes, and that we'd got them by helping an old woman on the road. It wasn't the same as bringing the black baby rabbit home, tied to the back of my bicycle carrier in a shoe box, that other day, but I felt gratified.
Such was life in Zimbabwe. Mugabe had been in power for three years by now. This was Mugabe's Zimbabwe, in a way. It didn't seem to make much difference which leader we had. Life just went on and on, day after day. I had some really good days exploring the countryside with my horse, Honey. The air always had a good smell to it. Sometimes I travelled into the valley across the street from us, and once the whole vlei and the rocky outcrop were burnt. It had a really dark, forbidden feel to it, as everything crunched under foot. I hit my head on a lowhanding smouldering branch, and it made my riding hat sit skew upon my head.
My mother was grateful for the tomatoes I'd brought home for her: "Put them over there in the rack with the other ones!" she'd said. I did as she'd suggested, putting them there in the dark of the kitchen, on the third level down.
Tomorrow would be a brand new day.
Such was the situation of my generation -- brought up under the protective policies of Ian Smith's regime in colonial Rhodesia. Did we know that the rest of the world had moved on without us? We did not. Did we know that we were presumed racist? Certainly not at all! And I sat blithely next to Rosemary every English class, not registering that she was different from me in such a way that our relationship ought to have been strained. We were of different colours, but of the same socio-economic group, as those 'elite' enough to be able to afford housing in the suburbs. I cannot speak for Rosemary, whose father was in government, and who may have fallen into greater affluence than her everyday attitude and standard issue school uniform suggested. It was rare for my family to be able to afford something new -- whether that be a new car, a new dress, a new bridle, for a very, very old horse, or a bottle of family sized coke to share on the weekend. We kept the old R4, which received a new paint job, thanks to prison forced labour and technology. The old bridle, a hand-me-down from my half-Portuguese grandma continued to work, loaded through the generations with saddle grease. I went without the new dresses, unless relatives sent hand-me-downs, or I was the happy beneficiary of a croched dress, sold to me by a black woman, vending her wares at our gate. (The gate itself was rickety and warped; its metallic frame having received a couple of idents from one or two far too eager cars. The chicken wire that formed the body of the fence was homely and sufficient for the work it had to do.)
Such was the situation of my upbringing in Smith's Rhodesia. I loved my horse and did my school work with a modicum of compliance. My best friends at high school were Rosemary, Julie Wilson (who also had a horse), Cheryl (whose mother used to sometimes take us home from school when it was raining very hard) and Julie Atkinson, whose parents had mad Irish parties. (I was never invited to these.)
I was brought up to take one day at a time. The future would look after itself. In the afternoon, I went to exercise my horse, in the delicate heat of the early afternoon. I would come home sweaty and dirty, smelling like oil and mud. The rest of the afternoon I would spend doing my homework, until mother called me for dinner.
Dinner was a standard formula of one form of meat, a vegetable and something which we came to know of as "a starch". The starch was always the most interesting element of dinner, which we asked about first. If we had really good luck, the starch would turn out to be chips -- deep fried in a heavy saucepan, sending little waves of fragrant sunflower seeds outside the kitchen window, beckoning us. If we were unlucky, it might be mashed potato. We also ate corn some days. A very rare treat for us would be the staple diet of the majority -- mealie-meal porridge, with a side-dish of stew. To be at the receiving end of such a dish meant that my mother had been overtaken with a sudden burst of creativity. We always thanked our lucky stars for the good mood and feeling of excitement that brought us.
I was not considered stupid for my age. In fact, when they started academic streaming at the end of primary school, and then in high school, I always ultimately ended up in the topmost class. Although that was the case, it didn't cross my mind that anything could have been different, or that it meant anything. In fact, in the first year of high school, I spent an early spell within the second highest class because, it was said, that I was "shy", and given to speaking very little. It was reasoned that my confidence could be built up by being in a class that was a fraction lower than my academic abilities. I wasn't shy at all, in fact, but I distrusted authorities, whom I thought could be heavy handed. I was happy to be wherever they put me in the school, since it had no meaning anyway. What I liked to do was to drop popcorn seeds on the heads of the girls leaning over the rail, outside a classroom a floor down from where we had to wait before school. Since these girls were predominantly black, the popcorn seeds used to bounce off their springy heads, which was fascinating. When I sat in class with my schoolmates, I used to line up a whole row of popcorn seeds at the end of my desk, and then wait until the teacher wasn't looking, before flicking the seeds, with my thumb and finger, onto various of my class mates. I could only do this in English class, however, since it was one of my slacker classes, in which I was supposed to speak up about things, but never did.
When I didn't have popcorn seeds to attack my friends with, I found a solution in tearing off a page of fullscape paper, and turning pieces from the edges into little balls of paper and saliva. I would then line up this homemade ammunition in a row at the edge of my desk, and in the same manner that I used to send the popcorn flying, would flick these tasty bits of paper residue at all my friends. The key was a psychological game which involved very good timing. You couldn't be caught engaging in this provocation by the all-seeing teacher. You had to wait for a slight glance away from you, and you had to do it poker-faced.
The fun thing was when I put little bits of rolled up paper into Kerry-Anne's hair style. Kerry-Anne sat in front of me, and her hair was neatly curled around the base of her head to form a perfect gutter. It was so perfect that it could hold a lot of these bits of paper, so long as she was still. I spent about five minutes making sure that every part of Kerry'Anne's perfect hair-catchment received a little ball of paper. I had to be very patient, and hold a steady hand -- but soon it was done. Then suddenly she moved! The bits of paper flew everywhere! She said it wasn't funny; but it had been quite intriguing to see all these papers move through the air all at once.
It wasn't Smith's Rhodesia that was to blame for my abhorrent behaviour. Truth is, I didn't do it all the time in any case. Some times, I sat perfectly still, trying to focus on the subject matter of the lesson. This was easier to do in subjects like maths, physics or geography, since in these class the teachers were generally stricter, and could make you do what they said. That was the case except for the Australian teachers and some of the scripture teachers. They couldn't make you do very much, and the Aussie imports had a whiny tone, and took their umbrellas from the car with them, to avoid the impact of the rain. The female scripture teachers had too much mascara, that used to knot their eyelashes together, which was strange, and you would wonder why they did it -- I wondered this in primary school, especially. The male scripture teachers could be made fun of, because we were all girls in a girls' school, and the teachers were already uneasy. My friend Julie, the Irish Catholic, said: "We teased this priest until he started to cry. We noticed that he had a hair poking out from his fly."
And so it was in 1983, when Smith's Rhodesia had turned into Zimbabwe. The term "mampara" -- (silly fool) -- was one I had become well accustomed to, having been given it more than often from Amos, who ironed and washed up for us. I forget where I left things, and played practical jokes. I was a mampara, however, with a firmly seated notion of ethics. It was wrong not to help those in need. A woman riding ahead of us had a whole basket of tomatoes at the front of her bike. We were coming home from school and saw her lose hold of her bike and unload them all over the road. I stopped without word, and began picking them up, one by one. They were not great tomatoes but sunweathered, orange, mishapen as they were but even more so due to their catastrophe with the road. My friend Cheryl, who was riding home from school just behind me, seeing me pick up the tomatoes, joined me, until we had collected and returned them all -- about 200 of them. This black woman was grateful -- and I was ashamed that she was grateful to us. We hadn't done anything that anybody else wouldn't have done in the same situation.
"You must be Christian girls!" she exclaimed, unexpectedly. "I am also Christian. Where do you girls go to church?"
I obliged her by proving the guess to be a correct one. I said that I, for one, did. I went to a church every Sunday. The one called Kingsmead Chapel on the hill up there. Once all the merchandise had been reloaded in the basket, she separated out half a dozen of these bashed tomatoes for us, and handed them to us. "This is a gift for your mother," she said, with generous finality.
I had been given something very special -- heartfelt thanks and pleasure, which I carried home as if it were very precious cargo. I didn't know what words I would use yet, to explain the importance of these tomatoes to my mother. I'd start by telling her that these were special tomatoes, and that we'd got them by helping an old woman on the road. It wasn't the same as bringing the black baby rabbit home, tied to the back of my bicycle carrier in a shoe box, that other day, but I felt gratified.
Such was life in Zimbabwe. Mugabe had been in power for three years by now. This was Mugabe's Zimbabwe, in a way. It didn't seem to make much difference which leader we had. Life just went on and on, day after day. I had some really good days exploring the countryside with my horse, Honey. The air always had a good smell to it. Sometimes I travelled into the valley across the street from us, and once the whole vlei and the rocky outcrop were burnt. It had a really dark, forbidden feel to it, as everything crunched under foot. I hit my head on a lowhanding smouldering branch, and it made my riding hat sit skew upon my head.
My mother was grateful for the tomatoes I'd brought home for her: "Put them over there in the rack with the other ones!" she'd said. I did as she'd suggested, putting them there in the dark of the kitchen, on the third level down.
Tomorrow would be a brand new day.
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