The Quiet Town

Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, April 23rd 2008

1st leg

I walk across the street in downtown Bulawayo and witness regular sites one would see in a country during election time; campaign posters for both parties posted on walls and lamp posts, individuals going to and from work, students in uniform getting out of school, buying ice cream and sweets, individuals going in and out of shops and coming out with some groceries.

Yes, all is “quiet” here in Bulawayo, many Zimbabweans will say.

The local news, ZBC, continues this sentiment; major news items sticking to ordinary every day events of the president or “law abiding citizens”, climaxing with stories of how the MDC , burned down a ZANU PF hut. This particular story was repeated at least three days in a row on the nightly news.

I continue walking; men and women, suited as any office employee anywhere are generally going to work; those for whom the commute costs more than they are being paid walk. Vegetables are still being sold at the side of the road; thin bags overfilled with small ripe tomatoes cry a freshness that must come from a well watered somewhere.

They say you cannot find food here, I thought that included fresh vegetables.

Hungry vendors catch my eye, “Tomatoes, Z$50,000.” It is the high cost that tips me off that something is wrong with at least the economy. They try to hide their desperation with overaggressive sales tactics. I don’t need any tomatoes; I am receiving food at a very decent house. Unable to convince me they try to sell other items they manage to have with them: oranges, mints, matches. I buy an orange for later, Z$20,000, US$.50 to make them happy. I wip out two Z$10,000; the lowest and highest denomination that I’d been given at this point; that is worth about two mints. I later would buy bags of tomatoes, unintending to use them, giving them to someone else who may eat or sell them, my own style of FDR depression era economics tactics trying to revive in Zimbabwe don’t seem to be working, again.

I enter a few grocery stores, what they say about empty shelves is true. I brought in a big bag of meallie meal from South Africa just in case it wasn’t available here, but in certain stores it is here by the kg. Other basic food stuffs can be found, including kapenta in jars, descluding loafs of bread. The lady I am staying with says she hasn’t been able to have bread for weeks. Flour was scarce if not non-existent. When I brought in a wheat loaf from South Africa she exclaimed at the sight and was so delighted by it she saved it until it was too dry to enjoy. I spot something that resembles bread in the store, poor man’s bread with less flour. I buy some just in case I won’t see it again. Because Bulawayo is closer to a border, it is better off in food items than Harare . Also, due to historical baggage, Bulawayo’s food was less politically controlled. The truth is, most anything could be found if one was willing to pay for it. “Runners” on the black market would frequent Botswana, retrieve all necessary foodstuffs and sell them at a profitable price. There was a small margin of people that were benefiting off of Zimbabwe’s calamities, and a percentage of them were concentrated in the black market. They made the same in a day that a salaried employee would make in a month: US$30; something that could actually sustain a family.

At the checkout counter I attempt to pay for the few items I found. The hoard it while you can find it craze has infected me already; the bill, a couple hundred thousand Zim dollars. I quickly try to count the $10,000’s in my possesion; I notice the lady in front of me has aced it. Unused to having to handle such large amounts of bills, I fluster and forget where I am at, so I start again. I reach for another batch of $10,000’s in my bag. Meanwhile, the line grows. The cashier, trained by months of prices that had outlived bill sizes and accustomed to clients affected the same, grows frustrated. Pressure increases, I finally arrive at the necessary amount, pocket useless change and go on my way.

As I walk out I am confronted by a city trying to maintain a level of normalcy. It seems when a country is under a constant state of emergency, the people learn to adapt in such a way to maintain some level of order. Food still needs to be put on the table, therefore work still needs to be sought and attended, the kids still need to prepare for their future, so they must go to school when possible; life must work hard to go on. The hoops to jump through to attain this “normalcy” become smaller and higher, so those capable pursue a greater level of acrobatics to achieve life’s current, most urgent goal: survive. Those not blessed with the strength, creativity or connections with which to make this mark, fall by the wayside; unseen, untold by the numbing routine of the daily grind. Such masking aids the repetitive lie of those who now name themselves leaders: “There is no crisis in Zimbabwe.”

This illusory blanket hides historically valid fear, anguish and outrage behind closed windows and doors where in low-lit rooms the Ndebele people begin to speak:

“Yes the elections were fair, but the results weren’t. Now look at what they are doing; abusing, torturing, beating and killing people.”

“Yes; the worse its been since Gukhurundi!” a feisty young man indignates.

“This whole deal about the run off,” says a coming-into-her-own-voice woman squished in the corner of the couch.

“We will go to the election, but if it is rigged again, you know what we will do” says a coming of age young man to my right in response to the question of the upcoming June elections.

“Yes we will have to come together and use force!”
“It has been too long,”
“Yes we must fight!”
“We are ready!” the group agrees, becoming bolder by the minute.

Scared but willing, the huddled group of Ndebele individuals discuss the unheard of possibility of enacting force against their government. This lasts about fifteen minutes when the leader of the discussion, Tedi from a Zimbabwean Independent Radio Station, realizing that this could all just be puffed up talk but glad to get it on tape, ends the meeting. Talk Now is an Independent Radio station that encourages dialogue amongst every day Zimbabweans by holding “town meetings” in which they ask Zimbabweans questions about the current political situation, seek out real, heartfelt answers and then record the discussion on video and tape. They then produce cassette tapes that capture the meat of these discussions and give them out for free to Kombi drivers and interested citizens. The idea is to keep the dialogue going in the Kombi amongst everyday citizens while serving as an impetus to open their minds, showing there is an alternative to the one sided mainstream media, and that there are other people who share their sentiments regarding the government.

The Ndebele which is the tribe that resides in the North East part of the country are known for being more of a warrior tribe, while the other tribal group of Zimbabwe, the Shona, are known for being more passive peacemakers. The Ndebele have been traditionally against the ruling party, ZANU PF due to Mugabe and ZANU PF’s ridding of the Ndebele opposition party in the early eighties, and genocide of up to 20,000 Nebeles at the hand of what at that time was ZANU and Mugabe’s special army for carrying out these tasks, the 5th Brigade.

As we roll out of the Bulawayo shanty town with blaring prophetic Thomas Mapfuno continuing the revolutionary tone, the African sun salutes us with a blazing yellow melting into an earthen clay pot of orange; a government cannot stop an act of nature speaking out and saying its piece about this beautiful country.

Empty Pages in a journal 1

“I did not go to Nicaragua intending to write a book, or write at all, but my encounter with the place affected me so deeply that in the end I had no choice. So: a moment, but I believe a crucial and revealing one, because it was neither a beginning nor an end, but a middle, a time that felt close to the fulcrum of history, a time when all things, all the possible futures, were still (just) in the balance.” Salman Rushdie, The Jaguar Smile, p. 5.

I went to Zimbabwe almost a year ago now, to see what I could do to join in the struggle against Robert Mugabe and the ZANU PF government that was slowly and quickly starving, beating and killing its own people. I went because Zimbabwe has always been a country close to my heart, as I spent my formative childhood years there. Every time I read the news regarding Zimbabwe, I felt emotionally charged and desired to do something. After years of feeling this way, I finally decided, that for a little while at least, I would go. It was hard getting any type of support in going there, as everyone knew the potential danger of the now news-heavy African country. I understood this but also understood my desire to go. Even upon reaching South Africa, the country bordering Zimbabwe to the South, I was advised not to go into ZImbabwe. The danger was severe, and I realize now, I wasn’t aware of the degree of that danger until I left, miraculously safe. However, having risked my life to capture these stories, when I came back I found myself unable to write about them. A feeling of defeat still weighs on me as I think about my response to my time there; I made a video, went on NPR, and wrote a blog, but did not achieve my goal of writing about the people in the country I cared about so much. I kept these hidden, as the story and the suffering has been for so long, now finally creeping into the limelight. I wrote a piece when I got back about how much I wanted to forget, how I felt there was a force pushing me to forget, and how weighty it was. That force, that weight I feel and felt was the desperation, the need, the tear trailing story doubled behind each of the faces I encountered. That is the one side of the force, the affected, the victims, the traumatized, that is a deep sadness, a hopelessness, a “I can’t do this anymore”. The other side is equally if not more powerful, the power that kept me silent this year. A well loved folk group stated in one of their songs, “Empty pages in a journal say more than any words were able.” I believe that this was true for my time in Zimbabwe, the lack of writing, the lack of speaking out by so many, the continued quieting says more than the multitude of words on the news. This quieting force is that that I feel is ruling Zimbabwe, a dark, dominating, oppressive force that has been present there for some time now, I would like to argue, since the beginning of colonization; a force that has beaten into passive survival mode many of its citizens in and outside of the country. This is the force of control, manipulation and brute power stealing, a force of no freedom, constant boundedness, fear gripped, rights erased. The fear is pervasive, a well earned paranoia of big brother breathing down and often times beating down your back. It has caused a hospitable, polite society to turn on its own, those oppressed and oppressing mostly doing it for the same reason, survival of the fittest. Once the fitter or bruter start receiving more than survival, they become sickly addicted to it, and cannot stop even when their piece grows avaricely large, dividing and necessitating distrust of any other unknown. It is this crippling force that grips both oppressed and oppressors which keeps me and so many desiring to be free in Zimbabwe silent.