I Am a Girl from Africa Read online

  I visit African communities in the London neighborhoods of Lambeth and Croydon, offering to braid women’s hair in their homes in exchange for a small fee. As I anxiously wait outside supermarkets, colleges, and bus terminals, shivering in the cold rain and scouting for potential clients, I am completely deflated, but I keep a friendly smile stretched across my face. I hold on tightly to Gogo’s shinga mantra. I hold on to it with everything I have, with my full heart, praying to God. Sometimes, if I am lucky, and if God answers my constant prayers, I get a customer or two, earning just enough to buy a loaf of bread, a box of tea, and a bus ticket. This work—this life—could not be more different from my dream or what I intended to do in London. “Shinga,” I chant as I walk for hours or ride the bus back to the youth hostel. “Shinga,” I whisper as I slowly eat my bread and peanut butter in the kitchen, my stomach growling. “Shinga,” I repeat to myself as I lie in bed at night. Eventually, this mantra becomes a kind of lullaby, and I fall asleep thinking of the strength that Gogo promised would always be within me. I know that I will need to call upon it for whatever tomorrow might bring.

  It is not fear but courage that is important.

  —South African proverb

  5

  “Your rent is due; no discussion.” The pudgy hostel manager glares at me over the top of his glasses. He has a greasy face, with puffy cheeks, wafer-thin lips, and a wispy comb-over, and he’s disheveled—dressed in a dirty-looking grayish shirt, open at the neck, that exposes a silver cross necklace nestled on his hairy chest. I feel rattled.

  Although Tiny Nose warned me about the hostel manager’s gruff attitude, I had not expected him to be this cold and dismissive. I don’t have the rent, although God knows, I wish I did. Even though I have been searching for a job almost nonstop for close to two months, I am still unemployed and have now completely run out of money. I am out of options. “Shinga,” I whisper to myself, quietly summoning all the confidence I can muster.

  “I intend to pay my rent, sir. Perhaps I could work for you so that I may be able to do so. I…” I am pleading with him, even though Gogo says we should always maintain our dignity and never beg, except to God.

  My words agitate him. “Is this a bloody joke? You either pay your rent or you better bloody well leave first thing tomorrow morning. Am I clear?” His voice is raspy and he shakes a chubby finger at me.

  Beads of cold sweat break out on my back. Where will I go? This hostel is my only home in London. It is the only place that feels familiar and safe. Even though the dorm smells like feet, the kitchen is always covered in crumbs and dirt and dust, and the moldy communal bathroom is hardly the stuff of dreams, my friends are here. I cannot lose my new community of fellow immigrants; I would feel even more alone without their support and companionship. This is the only place in this gigantic city where I am accepted without judgment. Out of options and out of money, I have no other place to go except the street.

  I try again. “Perhaps I could help out at the reception, sir. I used to work at a travel agency back home.” I hand him a copy of my CV, which he refuses to accept, shaking his head.

  “I am not bloody hiring. I need you out tomorrow. Do you understand me?” Without waiting for an answer, he turns to leave.

  I am desperate. My only other choice is to give up on my dream and go back home to Zimbabwe. That is not an option. I will not disappoint Gogo. I have to make this work.

  I run after him. “I have no other place to go, sir.” I feel diminished, small, as if I’m watching myself from above. Suddenly, I have an idea. “Perhaps I could take care of the rat and cockroach problem for you, sir,” I shout to his back, offering a solution to both our problems. Val recently told me that health inspectors have threatened to shut down the hostel if the pest infestation doesn’t improve.

  The manager stops, turns to me, and says, “Go on.” I do not want to do this job at all, of course, but any job is better than no job. Nobody said chasing a dream was easy, and that has certainly been the case for me. I have survived for almost two months; I can do this unappealing work if it means staying in London. Shinga, I remind myself, remembering my inner strength. “I would be more than happy to clean the kitchen and communal areas in exchange for rent, sir.”

  To my surprise, the manager perks up. Although I see the concern in his shifty eyes, and he is still completely unfriendly, he accepts my offer. When we shake hands, I become the hostel’s janitor in exchange for my rent.

  This could not be more different from the job I was hoping for, but it will keep me off the street, and that is what matters. Now that I am in charge of all the cleaning, I rise at the crack of dawn just like I did in Goromonzi, taking care of all the chores before any of the other guests are up. I clean the kitchen and the bathrooms, scrubbing out all the smells, filth, and mold. I wash up in the kitchen again after dinner, disinfecting all the communal rooms and spraying for pests. The work is disgusting and endless and tiring, but I find meaning in the job: I take pride in creating a healthier and more hospitable environment for myself and the other guests; I find gratification in putting in an honest day’s work in exchange for my rent; and I feel clever for finding a solution to a problem that would have ruined my chances to take the next step toward my dream. After I complete my janitorial duties, I go out into London once again, searching for a paying job. I still need to buy food and I must save for university. My dream anchors me—even when I’m tired and hungry, and even when the days are long and unpleasant.

  Still, I am feeling solemn and worn down one evening when Val finds me cleaning the kitchen. Without being asked he jumps in to help, washing the crusty dishes and keeping me company.

  “Don’t worry, my friend, everything works out,” he says, his hands covered in soapsuds. “In the beginning, I have no job. Now, I have job. Now, I have job and college,” Val says proudly, flashing his cheerful, gap-toothed smile.

  His optimism and kindness briefly lift my spirits. As I clean and he washes dishes, Val tells me about his childhood in Ukraine, where he lived happily with his parents and seven siblings until his father, who was an engineer, died when Val was fifteen years old. His mother was left with eight hungry kids to feed, clothe, and send to school. This presented a huge challenge, because Val’s mother didn’t have a job or the academic qualifications to pursue one, as she had dropped out of school when she became pregnant with Val. After the death of her husband, and with no formal skills, she took every possible job she could find to take care of her family, working as a nanny, a cleaning lady in office buildings, and a hotel chambermaid, often working two or three jobs at once. I feel immediate empathy for Val’s mother as I squash a cockroach with my foot and spray down the corner with roach killer. Even with all her hard work, his mother was unable to make enough money to make ends meet, so Val dropped out of school to help her, taking any odd job he could find. I can imagine that he stepped up to help with the same positive attitude with which he seems to approach everything.

  He stacks the final dish in the drying rack, I put down my broom, and we sit down together at the newly clean kitchen table. One day Val’s mother handed him an envelope full of cash and told him that she had been setting money aside every month to send him to London. She wanted him to find a proper job and build a better life for himself and their family. A year ago, Val arrived in the UK, and he is now studying engineering while working part-time at a recruitment agency; he is able to pay for his college fees and also send money back home. His story inspires me.

  “Yes, my friend, my mama do this for me. Can you believe?” Val says, his voice cracking with emotion. “Ah, my mama!” He shakes his head and looks away. I look at the tears glistening in Val’s eyes and feel similar emotions bubble up inside me. Although our home countries are thousands of miles apart, with vastly different cultures and languages, Val’s story reminds me so much of my own. Like Val, I am the eldest in my family, and like him, my mother struggled to take care of me and my siblings. Like Val, my mother cons
tantly searched for money for our family, doing all kinds of odd jobs. Val left everything behind to come to London to pursue his dream, which was also his mother’s dream for him, and so did I. All of this was made possible by the sacrifices our mothers made, and by their determination to give us opportunities that would lead to meaningful lives full of purpose and joy.

  I can tell that Val and I will become good friends, so I open up to him about my mother. It feels good to tell this story to a person I can trust. I tell him about the first morning after I arrived in Epworth from Goromonzi, when Amai gave me my first big opportunity—to attend school for the first time, when I was ten years old.

  * * *

  I am startled out of sleep by Amai’s anxious voice saying, “It’s time to go. Wake up your brother.”

  I rub my eyes and look around at the siblings I have only just met, sleeping on the floor beside me, all huddled together under the same thin, brown blanket with frayed edges, dotted with tiny holes. I take in the small, stuffy room that is much smaller than Gogo’s tiny hut, and empty except for a big pile of clothes heaped in one corner. A long wire suspended between the unplastered brick walls is hanging with children’s clothes of various sizes. I look over at Osi and immediately decide that I am going to call him “The Boy,” inside my head, so I will not start to like him. I gently nudge The Boy awake.

  I stumble out of the dark house and find Amai kneeling next to a small fire in the yard, stirring porridge quick-quick in a metal pot. Other fires are burning in the neighbors’ yards, and dark smoke tunnels upward into the gray sky. I notice that Amai’s house, made of brick, is much nicer than the other homes, which are made of sticks and clay or scraps of metal covered by roofs of colorful plastic. The homes around me are built close together, and all of their yards combined are smaller than Gogo’s yard. The air is fresh and crisp, the sky still dark and gray, and my longing for the bright yellow sky in Goromonzi feels like a stab in my heart. Today, I think, I will run away, back to Gogo.

  Amai hands me a bucket. “There,” she says, nodding toward a shack made of sticks and plastic at the edge of the yard. Inside, it smells like rotting cabbage. Small brown rocks are laid out over the damp ground and a single bar of cracked green soap sits in the corner. This is the washing shack for Amai and four other neighbors and their families. I splash my body with water, scrub my legs and cracked feet, and dry off with a small, scratchy green towel. When I get out, Amai hands me a blue dress and a matching sweater, just like the clothes I noticed hanging inside moments before.

  “Are we going back to Goromonzi?” I ask hopefully, although I wonder why I wouldn’t simply wear the other new dress she gave me yesterday.

  “Hurry up,” Amai says, ignoring my question. “The porridge is almost ready. Where is your brother?”

  When The Boy comes out, he is wearing a pair of blue shorts and a sweater that matches my own, only smaller. We both eat porridge, as Amai shares the food with her neighbors.

  “Where are we going?” I ask again. I really want to know. Why won’t anyone tell me what’s going on?

  “Us, we are going to school, Lizzy,” The Boy shouts gleefully.

  I am confused and alarmed. I want to go back to Gogo, not to school with The Boy.

  “Let’s go,” Amai says impatiently, balancing a large metal basin on her head. I decide that wherever this school is, I will wait for Amai to leave and then ask the teacher how to get back to Goromonzi, to my true home with Gogo.

  “How far away is the school?” I ask.

  “Aaaa, maybe one hour,” Amai responds.

  I don’t know what “one hour” is. I don’t know how to tell time. I have never had a watch. I decide I will know how long “one hour” is once we get there, and I follow Amai as we weave through the township, marching toward the school. I ask how long it will take to walk to Harare, and Amai says, “maybe five hours.” I still don’t know what five hours means-means, but I imagine it will be like walking from Amai’s home to school five times. I can manage that, I think, remembering the long journeys to get water at the river in the Good Forest. I know how to walk fast-fast. When I ask, “How far from Harare to Goromonzi?” Amai’s voice is irritated and weary, “Me, I don’t know.” Once again, I am asking too many questions for a child, so I keep walking and say no more.

  “We are here!” The Boy cries when we reach Epworth Primary School, and I follow Amai through the gate into the schoolyard, which is packed with students in blue uniforms running around and making too much noise. On the edge of the schoolyard sits a white church with a wooden cross. Beside the church are classrooms arranged in a square facing each other. I stay close to Amai. I can hear my heart beating in my ears.

  Amai walks with me into the classroom, “This is Lizzy. She is coming from our village, Goromonzi.” After she introduces me to the teacher, all the students laugh. I am too terrified to respond. In my panic, the room begins to spin. The teacher rushes to my side and leads me to an empty chair at the back of the classroom while the kids keep laughing.

  I slump into the desk chair, feeling miserable. Amai doesn’t know that when I was supposed to go to school in Goromonzi, when I was seven, Gogo bought me a uniform, a book, and a pencil, but I only attended for a few weeks because there was too much work to do in the fields. Gogo needed my help. I can count to fifty and add simple numbers, but I cannot write a full sentence and it hurts my hand to hold a pencil. What will I do now?

  The teacher writes numbers on the board and asks us to copy them down in our notebooks. It is the first day of the new school year and I am not prepared. I don’t have a notebook or a pencil, because Amai didn’t give me either one, so I pretend to write on the desk with my finger. I can’t follow anything the teacher is talking about and I finally stop trying.

  When the bell rings, I find The Boy, my brother, excitedly waiting for me outside my classroom. He grabs my hand, beaming with joy, and drags me toward the school gate. He asks me all kinds of questions without waiting for answers: “Do you like mathematics? Can you teach me grade four things, Lizzy? Me, I am smart-smart. Aaaa, do you play soccer, Lizzy? Me, I am fast-fast.”

  Outside the school gate, we step into the chaos of plenty-plenty ambuyas and sisis pacing up and down with huge metal basins full of mangoes, guavas, bananas, mafatty buns, crispy madora worms, sweets, and potato chips to sell as lunches for the children.

  “She is there!” The Boy says, running to Amai. He throws his arms around her legs.

  “How was class, Lizzy?” Amai asks, shaking the mafatty buns inside the basin she carried on her head to the schoolyard. She hands one bun to me and another to The Boy. I have no appetite, so I give my bun to The Boy and help Amai wrap up buns in old newspaper for her customers, the students.

  After lunch break, when I ask the teacher how long it will take to get to Goromonzi if I walk fast-fast, she says, “It is not possible. You will never make it,” and shoos me away to my desk at the back of the room.

  I was clinging to hope that I might find a way out of here, but now that two adults—Amai and the teacher—have said that it is impossible to walk back to Goromonzi, I realize I am stuck here: in this unfamiliar place, surrounded by people who might as well be strangers. I miss Gogo terribly. All I want is to be with her back home. My heart is a weight in my chest. Tears form but I blink them away; I don’t want anyone to see that I’m upset. I’ve been laughed at enough for one day. I make a pillow on my desk with my arms and set my head on it, hiding my face. I am lost and overwhelmed, and I have just realized that I am here for good.

  The Boy is so happy to see me after school, and never stops talking and asking me questions, so I decide that if I am to stay here forever, I will call him by his real name, Osi. Osi talks and tells stories until we reach Amai’s house. The moment we arrive, Amai says, “Lizzy, you must take care of the house and the children. Me, I am searching for money.” I know how to take care of Gogo’s hut, but I have never taken care of a house full of children. Amai o
ffers no further instruction or information, overwhelming me again. What does she mean by searching for money? How long will she be gone? I am full of questions, but this time I do not ask them. I simply nod in agreement. I will do what I’m told.

  The next morning, as the person in charge, I rise at the crack of dawn, just like I did in Goromonzi. I clean the house, sweep the yard, and make fire to cook porridge. I wake the children and feed them, rushing to get myself and Osi to school on time. After school I fetch water from the borehole, wash the dirty dishes, the dirty children, and their dirty clothes. I prepare dinner that night and then every night after, put the children to sleep, and then collapse, exhausted, on the blankets next to them, where I immediately fall asleep.

  I miss Gogo every second of every day, but at school I make a new friend called Jeri, who is smart-smart and always at the top of the class. When I tell her about my struggle in school, she says, “Aaaa, don’t worry, Lizzy. Me, I can help you with your schoolwork.” She stretches her arm across my shoulders and gives me an affectionate squeeze, which makes me feel a bit better. Jeri tells me she wants to be a nurse when she grows up so she can take care of others.

  “Me,” I say, “I want to be the girl in the blue uniform.”

  “Who is that?”

  “She is God’s angel, Jeri. She feeds hungry children, and she once took care of me. Promise me, Jeri,” I say, hooking my small finger with hers. “Promise that we will help other people when we grow up.”