I Am a Girl from Africa Page 5

  I am devastated, utterly defeated, as if my dream is dying around me, right here in the office that I thought was the right one, but is in fact the wrong one. What I am going to do now? I tear out of the office and run onto the busy street. Rain is pouring from the sky, and the loud noise of black cabs and red buses rumbling past is unbearable and disorienting. I have to get as far from here as possible. I keep running, and when I finally run out of breath, I realize I’m in a small, dark alley, lost again, with my clothes soaking wet from the rain that falls all around me.

  Everything begins to spin: the ground, my mind, my thoughts. I have left everyone behind, Gogo and my family, my home and everything that I have ever known—to come here to this country that once ruled my own, only so that I could work for the United Nations. But now that is never going to happen. Water tumbles around my body, drenching me completely, as I feel myself begin to unravel. I am shattered. What I am going to do now that I have lost my dream, now that I have lost everything?

  * * *

  I am ten years old, and Gogo and I are making food packets inside our hut. We are in the middle of a second terrible drought just as powerful as the first. During the first drought two years ago, death took so many lives—just as it nearly did my own. It took the souls of many young children and sick ambuyas and sekurus. And now it is coming for us again. Once again, God has forgotten us. Once again, the rain has refused to come, leaving us with Satan’s punishing heat, which dries up our river and kills our animals, trees, and crops. Once again, there will be no harvest this year. So we ration our food, counting our maize and beans before cooking, skipping as many meals as possible, ignoring our hunger pangs, as we brace ourselves for the worst that we know is coming.

  “We must make our food last-last,” Gogo warns. We measure and pour the beans we just received from one of the ambuyas into small bags, leaving the door slightly open to let in “God’s light,” but not wide enough to let in “Satan’s punishing heat.”

  Suddenly, I hear an unfamiliar woman’s voice outside the hut say, “I come in God’s name.”

  Still busy-busy with the beans, I say, “We welcome you,” as I greet every visitor, known or unknown. The woman asks if she may enter, and I say again that she is welcome.

  When the woman opens the door, the hut is instantly flooded with a shimmering light. As this stranger steps inside, the sun’s rays surround her with a radiant glow, as if she is one of God’s angels from the Bible. She sets a large bag on the floor, straightens her dress—red, with white buttons down the front—wipes dust from her brown canvas shoes, and sits down next to Gogo, who does not greet her. This is very strange, as Gogo smiles at everyone and is always quick to offer God’s blessings. But now Gogo does not even look up.

  The woman smiles at me, and I notice a big gap in her front teeth. I smile back, trying to remember if I have seen her before. She studies me carefully, and without looking at Gogo, the woman says, “How are you, Gogo?” clapping her hands together in greeting.

  “Eeee, things are hard,” Gogo responds, but still does not look at the smiling woman. I am stunned by Gogo’s reaction. She seems upset with the smiling woman. Why?

  “Are you okay?” the woman asks me, and because I am fine-fine, I nod. She reaches inside her bag and pulls out two loaves of bread, a big box of Tanganda tea bags, a bag of brown sugar, a small packet of salt, a small sack of rice, and several tins of beans.

  The sight of the food thrills me, and I thank God for sending this angel-woman to Gogo and me, just like he sent the girl in the blue uniform who found me and gave me porridge during the last drought, saving my life. This angel has not only brought us food, but also special gifts for me. She holds up a pretty dress patterned with yellow, red, and orange flowers, and then a pair of black canvas shoes that look brand-new. Gogo nods her approval, and so I accept the gifts, saying, “Thank you, Ambuya,” because I assume this is what she is.

  “Let’s see if it fits,” the woman says, and although the shoes are too tight and pinch my feet, I put them on, together with the new dress, and smile.

  “Aaaa, now you look smart-smart,” the angel-woman says. She turns to Gogo and says, “We must go.”

  Gogo sighs and says to me, “Come here, my dear child.” Her eyes fill with tears. “I must tell you something.” She explains that our situation is getting worse, and if the rain doesn’t come soon, things will worsen still. “I can no longer take care of you, my dear child,” she says, but she cannot look at me as she says this. “This is your amai—mother—and she has come for you.”

  My mother? The amai I have never met before? The amai who abandoned me when I was only a year old? Suddenly Gogo’s anger and refusal to address the woman make sense. Gogo said this woman, my amai, brought too-much-too-much shame to our family.

  I have prayed and longed for my amai for so many years. And now here she is, sitting in the hut I share with Gogo, her braided hair gathered stylishly on top of her head, her gap-toothed smile wide and friendly, her long, slender face a mirror of Gogo’s. I have imagined meeting her so many times; I imagined running into her arms, crying with joy. Instead, I feel nothing. It’s as if the light around her disappears and a dark shadow blankets her face, making her look like a dark angel, one that comes bearing terrible news. She is a stranger, and I do not want to go with her. I cannot imagine living anywhere but Goromonzi, or with anyone but Gogo.

  I throw my arms around Gogo’s waist and beg her to let me stay. “Please, please don’t let this woman take me!” I beg. “I promise I will find more food. I promise I will eat less, Gogo.”

  Gogo strokes my head, and her voice is thick with emotion when she says, “It is better this way, my dear child.”

  “We can’t miss the bus,” the amai person says in a tight voice.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you didn’t want me anymore!” I wail at Gogo. I am so hurt, it’s as if a pain has lodged deep in my chest, heavy and spiked. How can she send me away? What did I do wrong?

  “Eeee, it is very difficult for me too, my dear child.” Gogo’s voice catches in her throat.

  “Gogo, please! I need you. I need you so much!” I can feel my chest crack wide open at the thought of leaving her.

  “Eeee, my dear child. Listen to me.” Tears flow from her eyes. “You have a special shinga—strength—that will always protect you. Me, I think that when God created us Africans, he knew that life wasn’t always going to be easy, so he gave us all this special shinga.”

  I keep sobbing.

  “Shinga is your inner strength, but it also means so much more—shinga means courage and to ‘be strong,’ and it also means to ‘persevere’ and to be ‘resilient.’ You, my dear child, you can always draw on your shinga, no matter the challenges you may face.”

  This does not soothe me; Gogo is my strength. “But I can’t live without you, Gogo.” I bury my head in her chest and wail loudly.

  Gogo takes my hand and places it on my heart, and holds it there. “Whenever you need me, I will always be right here with you inside your heart. Never forget that, my dear child. Never forget.” My sad heart beats wildly against my hand.

  Now I am terrified. Where will this amai person take me? Will I ever see Gogo again? “We have to go now,” Amai says. She pulls me away from my beloved Gogo, and practically drags me out of the hut. And in that moment, my world falls apart.

  “Where are we going?” I ask, and this amai person tells me in a quick-quick way that we are going to the big city of Harare and then to Epworth, which is a township where she lives, near Harare. I know that Harare is the capital city of Zimbabwe, so I listen carefully and try to remember everything so that I will know how to get back to Goromonzi, back to my true home with Gogo.

  We will take two buses. I have never been on a bus before. I am so scared that I force myself to grab this amai person’s hand, but I let go immediately once we’ve climbed inside the first bus. A frightened chicken clucks loudly, running up and down the center aisle, distu
rbing the serious sekurus sitting in the front seats lost in their thoughts. A few solemn ambuyas at the back of the bus chat softly, holding woven baskets and skinny chickens on their laps to sell in Harare.

  When we sit down, this amai person takes out her yarn and knitting needles and begins to knit. Clearly, she is not going to give me any more information about what is happening. I press my face to the window and watch the women and girls selling clay pots and woven baskets by the side of the road. In the distance are forests of dead trees and brown grass, as well as field after field littered with rows and rows of dead crops.

  Eventually I fall asleep, and when I wake up, Amai says, “We are in Harare.” I know Harare as the place where most sekurus in the village go to look for work so they can buy the ambuyas and their children nice-nice things. Harare is also where Gogo’s big-big son and her other two daughters live. Through the smudged glass I see only strangers and chaos. Plenty-plenty cars move fast-fast in all directions over wide roads. People look busy-busy rushing everywhere, and men weave between the cars on their bicycles. There are buildings of a kind I’ve never seen before, made entirely of glass, and I fear that a fast car might drive straight into one of the glass buildings, shattering it into tiny pieces. I shudder with fear.

  We alight at Mbare, which Amai tells me is the main station for the buses to the villages. Now that I am not with Gogo, I feel more alone in the world, and I observe everything with careful eyes. The world itself feels suffocating and much less friendly. Women wearing colorful dresses with crying babies tied on their backs sell beautiful beads at the side of the road. Men shout at the top of their voices for people to board buses to places I have never heard of and cannot even imagine. Two policemen chase a young boy, screaming, “Tsotsi, tsotsi!—Thief, thief!” It couldn’t be more different from the peace of life in Goromonzi; here it is all shouting and honking and crowds. The air is no longer crisp and fresh as it is in our village, but clogged and smelly from bus and car fumes.

  We take another bus to Epworth, and when we stop at a small township center, music blares from a radio in a store while men pound their feet to the beats and rhythm. Girls almost as young as I am, with bright red lips and dressed in tight-tight clothing, dance with the men in a way I have never seen before. I look away with embarrassment. “Eeee, those ones are trouble!” Amai says, nodding in the girls’ direction. I get nervous, so I hold tightly to Amai’s hand, even though I desperately want to run back to Gogo. We march in silence, winding between small houses made of rusty metal and colorful plastic; past piles of decaying rubbish covered in flies; past young girls cooking supper on small fires in their tiny yards.

  Amai’s house is made of brick; it is dark when we arrive, but there is a man sitting on a small sofa, and a paraffin lamp on top of a cabinet casting weak light across the room. Sitting at a short, round table covered in a white cloth are a young boy, a young girl, and a baby. They scream “AMAI!!” and rush to the door.

  “Children, say hello to your sister, Lizzy,” Amai says, gently pushing me forward, and the children throw their arms around my legs and smile up at me. I learn that Osi is the boy, Memo is the girl, and the baby girl is called Chio. I am so overwhelmed that I cannot speak or move. This is too-much-too-much of too many things. Too much that is new and different. Who are these children? Where are we? I do not want to be here. I want my Gogo. I want to go home.

  “And this is your baba, your father,” Amai tells me.

  “Hello. Welcome home, Lizzy,” the baba person says with a wide, beaming smile as he extends his hand to me. I never knew how to think of him in my head, so when faced with the actual person, I cannot say a word or even offer a greeting. Didn’t Gogo say he was irresponsible and useless? He pats me on the head and returns to the sofa. I am practically trembling with confusion; I am so disoriented and sad. Amai offers me food, but I do not respond, even when she places a small bowl of sadza and vegetables on the table. She asks me if I am hungry, or if I am tired, and I remain still and silent.

  “Okay, come,” she says abruptly, clearly irritated, and leads me to a small, dark room behind a curtain. Some light from the paraffin lamp filters into the room, where Amai arranges a small pile of blankets in the corner. I wait for this stranger, my amai, to leave, and then I take off my dress, roll it into a pillow, and slide between the blankets. I burst into tears. I want to go back to Goromonzi I want my Gogo. I place my hand on my heart and try to speak to Gogo, trying to feel her familiar presence, wanting nothing more than to run away. I fall asleep still sobbing, praying to God to send me back home.

  * * *

  Without my dream to keep me going, I struggle for weeks to find purpose and meaning. My days in London are as gloomy and depressing as the weather, spent pounding the pavement in the continuous drizzling rain, looking for work. I go door to door, asking for jobs at supermarkets and clothing stores; I inquire at restaurants and travel agents, explaining to the managers that I have previous retail experience. I decide that if I’m already in London, I will need to make the most of it. I will find another job—any job. I will save money, go to university, and then apply for a job with the United Nations in Geneva or New York City.

  “Sorry, love; we’re not hiring,” I hear over and over again, followed by a long glance up and down my body, making me feel self-conscious of my appearance and my inexpensive clothes. “I am a hard worker and I learn quickly,” I always reply. Still I fail to find a job. I cling to Gogo’s shinga mantra. “Shinga,” I whisper to myself each time they turn me down. “Shinga,” I chant out loud before I knock on every door. I call on that inner strength as if it is water in a well that I might drink from to sustain me. I try to let it fill me up.

  Just as Gogo and I rationed our food during the drought in Goromonzi, I keep careful track of my food so it lasts as long as possible, rationing three slices of bread per day thinly covered with peanut butter and marmalade jam. Just like in Goromonzi, I barter and share food with Val and the other guests at the hostel, roughly forty fellow immigrants from more than thirteen different countries, including an aspiring nurse from South Africa called Bronwyn, and Iman, a recent law school graduate from the Middle East. In this filthy place we create a small and supportive community as we attempt to adapt to this new home. We connect with one another over our desires and dreams to uplift our families and communities out of extreme poverty and build a better life for them and for ourselves. At night we sit on mismatched plastic chairs around the grimy blue plastic kitchen table, sharing our stories from home.

  “I am gutted. The UK won’t recognize my qualifications, so now I have to retrain, which is very expensive,” Bronwyn says. The frustration is palpable in her voice as she talks about all the rejections she’s received from local hospitals and clinics. We discuss our shared experiences, exchanging tips for finding work and laughing at our failures. This is how we briefly forget about our own individual struggles: being seen by hiring managers as suspicious, sometimes simply based on the “strange” sounds of our foreign last names; being judged as “less than” due to our nationalities and the misperceptions or stereotypes that come with them; being thought of as “other” because of the color of our skin, or the texture of our hair, or the thickness of our accents, or the “odd” style of our clothing. Iman chimes in with her own story. “Can you believe that the hiring manager asked if I would be okay with not wearing my hijab to work if offered the job, so as to not offend the clients? How culturally insensitive is that?” she says. We all nod, sharing in her pain. These conversations stave off loneliness and give me a sense of belonging somewhere in this huge gray city.

  Our status as outsiders binds us together; and yet we are still outsiders. I know that when some managers hear that I am from Africa, they don’t see the beauty of my village, or the generous and kind nature of the people who raised me. Instead, they see images like the ones featured in fundraising commercials that play constantly on the tiny television suspended in the corner of the hostel’s
greasy kitchen: images of naked, severely malnourished African children with their mouths agape and their faces covered in flies; images of destitute women in tattered clothing, wandering aimlessly in refugee camps; images of skeletal-looking people dying of AIDS in crowded hospitals.

  “My friend, is it really that bad in Africa?” Val asks. I share with him my own experience with poverty when the drought hit my village, but I also tell him that life on either side of that crisis was defined by richness and abundance and joy. I tell him that Harare is a developed, modern, and bustling city with skyscrapers and wide paved roads, lined with busy cafés and trendy shops. I explain that the images flashing across the screen are completely skewed and one-sided, reinforcing a single, negative narrative—one very different from the Africa I know and love. The images I see in the UK depict Africa as a country, rather than a culturally rich, socially and linguistically diverse continent of more than fifty vibrant, independently governed countries. In short, what Val has seen and what I see and what, no doubt, the hiring managers see are images that do not show the full African story. I tell Val that our people are proud and hardworking, and our cultures colorful and joyous. I tell him that we define ourselves not by the enormity of our struggles, but by our resilience and strength in facing them, working together as children of the African soil.

  “Okay, I see,” Val says, and smiles at me. “I understand.”

  * * *

  When I count my money after paying for my second month of rent, I realize that I am down to my last forty pounds, and that I have been searching for a job for over a month. I panic. I can’t go back home to Zimbabwe without having accomplished anything. I can’t waste the opportunity that Gogo has given me to be here in London to pursue my dream. An opportunity that most of the sisis in Goromonzi will never have. I have to do more with my life. I have to find a solution. “Shinga,” I whisper to myself, and decide that if no manager will hire me, I will create my own work.