I Am a Girl from Africa Read online

  The classrooms are painted white and form a U shape around a large yard anchored by a huge rectangular flower bed brimming with yellow, white, pink, and red flowers. We poke our heads into the empty classrooms, taking in the brand-new desks and chairs, then walk to the back of the school, where there is a sparkling blue swimming pool surrounded by a fence. I have never seen a swimming pool before, so I stare at the clean blue water for a while, then follow Uncle Sam behind the pool to a playground with an evenly cut lawn.

  Unlike Epworth Primary School, the school and its grounds are so nice—like something out of a magazine or a book—with freshly painted buildings, shiny corridors, lush playgrounds, and fragrant, blooming flowers that fill the air with their sweetness. Everything looks perfect, and for a moment I get excited about what I might learn here, and what this will mean for me. I breathe in the smell of freshly cut grass, look around the yard, and feel sudden joy cut through my sadness. But I also feel unsure, and I quickly begin to worry about all the things I do not know: I have never met anyone who is British. I don’t know how to speak, read, or write English. How does Uncle Sam expect me to go to school here and learn anything at all? How will I even fit in?

  “So, what do you think about the school?” Uncle Sam asks, barely able to contain the excitement in his voice.

  “What if the other children don’t like me?” This is a real concern, a real fear of mine. After all, this is a British school, and Gogo has told me that the British people have not always been kind to us Africans. Will these children be nice?

  When I tell Uncle Sam this, he says, “Things have changed, and we are now one nation.” I don’t know what it means to be one nation, but I like hearing that things have changed; it eases my worries a bit. Uncle Sam places his hand on my shoulder and says, “I know this is not easy for you, Elizabeth. Your amai and all of us love you very much and we all want the best for you. We all want you to have the choice to do more with your life, and getting a good education gives you the mukana to dream bigger, to accomplish more.”

  I am moved and comforted by his words. I want to do more with my life so I can make Gogo proud. I begin to feel that I can trust Uncle Sam; that I can talk to him and he will listen to me. I feel immense gratitude for his caring and concern.

  “Thank you for everything, Uncle Sam,” I say, and I mean it.

  * * *

  When I start school at Admiral Tait, I find it extremely challenging. Unlike at Epworth, all the subjects are taught in English, which is incredibly difficult. Still, I like being in a classroom with fewer students, because the teacher is able to spend more time with each of us. I like having a nice library with plenty of English textbooks to read, and I like receiving milk from the school at lunchtime. I appreciate having all these things that I never had before.

  I am yet to make friends at the new school, and I miss Jeri terribly, but I am always excited to spend time with Uncle Sam when I get home from school and he gets home from work. Uncle Sam explains that he is an economist. I don’t know exactly what he does, but I know that he is very proud of his job, which he says will help our country, Zimbabwe, heal after Chimurenga and improve the lives of our people. Aunt Jane works at the hospital in the evenings, so I help Uncle Sam prepare supper as we listen to English language tapes on the stereo. We sit together at the kitchen table for dinner, and Uncle Sam asks me to tell him about my day in English, helping me find bigger and more precise words to describe things and feelings. “You may also use the word ‘lovely’ instead of ‘nice,’ ” Uncle Sam says. “For example, you could say, ‘I had a lovely day,’ instead of ‘a nice day,’ or you could say, ‘I had a brilliant day,’ if your day was exceptionally great.”

  After dinner we clear the table and do homework, with Uncle Sam guiding me. He is attentive and supportive as he patiently teaches me how to read, write, and speak English with more ease and skill, asking me to repeat all the sentences after him. I pay attention to how Uncle Sam’s mouth moves over and around certain words, then repeat after him, over and over again, until my pronunciation improves. I take it all in, my mind like a sponge that expands more and more each day. I want Uncle Sam to be proud of me, so I work extra hard, spending all my lunch breaks reading in the library, which becomes my sanctuary, as I am still without any friends at school.

  * * *

  One day at lunchtime, the weather is sunny and warm, so I decide to take my book out of the library and sit underneath a big jacaranda tree at the bottom of the playground and let my shins soak up the sun, just as I used to do outside Gogo’s hut in Goromonzi. When I see the mean, pretty girl with her silky blond hair, and her two equally mean and pretty friends, approaching me, I feel panic set in. They always make fun of my kinky hair and thick African accent, giggling behind their hands whenever I speak, and whispering behind my back when I pass. Last week, after the teacher taught us about a famous British woman called Queen Elizabeth, the pretty girl demanded that I immediately change my name. “You can’t use our queen’s name ever again. Don’t you have some kind of stupid Shona name?” she yelled in my face as her fingers pinched my stomach until it stung. I don’t have a Shona name, and when I shook my head, she pinched me harder until my eyes watered with pain.

  “Anesu,” I blurted out. “You can call me Anesu.”

  I remember Gogo saying that anesu means “God is always with us.” It is what she says when we are going through a difficult time and think that God has forgotten about us. “Anesu, my dear child,” Gogo says as a reminder that no matter how challenging the situation is, “God is always with us.” I needed God to be with me and protect me from the mean, pretty girl, so I quickly decided that my new name was Anesu, which is what the mean girl and her friends began to call me.

  Now this morning the teacher asked us to tell a story about kindness. I thought very carefully about my answer, because I didn’t want to give the mean, pretty girl and her mean friends any reason to make fun of me, but I also wanted to tell this particular story that matters so much to me. I stood up and spoke about the kind girl in the blue uniform and how she saved my life.

  “Hello,” the pretty girl says now, with a big smile on her face. I can’t believe she is being kind to me. I can’t believe she finally wants to become my friend, when she’s been bullying me, pulling at my uniform and pinching my stomach until it stings and makes my eyes water. She has made me so nervous and self-conscious that I have developed a stutter when I speak English at school.

  I am glad that our lesson on kindness has encouraged her to be kind. What a relief! This will make my life at school so much more pleasant. I say a silent thank-you prayer to God, jump to my feet, smile, and nervously stutter, “H-h-hello.”

  “I brought you something,” the girl says, and hands me a parcel wrapped in a white plastic bag. I really want the pretty girl to like me. I want to have friends. I calm myself so I don’t stutter too much, and say, “T-t-t-thank you,” in my best English accent.

  “You are welcome,” she responds, still smiling. “Let’s go,” one of her friends says, pulling at her hand. They all burst out laughing, then take off running away from me.

  “B-b-bye,” I shout at them, still grinning from ear to ear.

  I sit down, excited about my gift. The package feels warm and soft against my hand, making my mouth water. I quickly open it, dig my fingers inside, and then just as quickly toss it away from me. I stare at my fingers, now covered in warm human feces, and feel my stomach churn. The smell is unbearable, and I quickly wipe my hands on the lawn. When I try to stand up, my body is trembling so violently that I drop to my knees and vomit up everything in my stomach. Finally, I pick up my books and take off running out of the schoolyard all the way back to the flat, leaving before school ends. I cannot bear to return to the classroom today. Weeping, I wash my hands over and over again, but a slight smell of feces still remains.

  * * *

  When Uncle Sam comes home from work, I am too embarrassed to tell him about the feces,
or about the bullying and how anxious I’ve become as a result. Instead, I ask Uncle Sam why the other students laughed at my story about the girl in the blue uniform. Uncle Sam explains that the girl in the blue uniform works for UNICEF, part of the largest humanitarian organization, called the United Nations, which helps people in need, including starving children. By sharing my story, I had unintentionally revealed too much about my humble background and the fact that I too was once starving. And in return—I quickly realize after the explanation—the pretty girl, a true bully, had decided to feed me with her feces.

  I am upset with myself for giving the mean girls a reason to be cruel to me, so I hang my head down and hide my pain from Uncle Sam. “Elizabeth, you should never let anyone make you feel ashamed of who you are or feel embarrassed of where you are from,” he says, placing his hand on my shoulder. I know that he is right because that’s what Gogo always says; she says “to be African is to be blessed, something to be proud of”—and in my bones, I know this to be absolutely true. But right now, I am too sad and upset to feel proud or blessed.

  I struggle at school initially, but by the end of the term, with Uncle Sam’s patient tutoring and my hours of hard work at the library, my grades improve and I get an A in my English class. As a reward, Uncle Sam finally takes me to Goromonzi to see Gogo.

  It is the first time I have been back home since Amai took me away two years ago. We find Gogo sitting in the yard, underneath the big tree next to the hut, shelling maize. She is on her feet as soon as she sees the car, walking quickly and with purpose, her footsteps assured and her arms wide open. It’s my Gogo! I can barely wait for the car to stop before I open the door and run to her.

  “Gogo, Gogo!” I scream, throwing myself into her arms. She stumbles backward, I shuffle my feet forward, tighten my arms around her, and catch Gogo’s fall. We stand there for some time in silence, realizing that no words will ever be enough. I can feel her heart beating against my ear, and I inhale her familiar earthy scent and wrap my arms as tightly as I can around her beloved body. We remain silent, then stare into each other’s eyes, allowing our souls to speak to each other.

  Finally, Gogo takes my face in both her hands and, still looking into my eyes, cracks a huge smile. “Aaaa, you are home, my dear child, you are home.” I feel relief and excitement and gratitude and tremendous happiness. Yes, I am finally home!

  That night, inside the hut, in my true home, to which my heart still belongs, I tell Gogo all about the new school and my time in Epworth: about learning English and about Osi and the children and my friend Jeri. Gogo listens with excitement in her eyes. She tells me everything about Goromonzi, including how they barely survived the last drought, and the sadness returns to her face. Although the rain has finally returned, bringing with it new life, there is still not enough food for everyone in the village, so together we get on our knees, hold hands, and ask God to protect our village.

  I am thrilled to finally be back home, and I spend the following days visiting everyone. I am greeted by blessings and cheerful laughter. Throughout the village I notice promising signs of healing: chirping birds sit on new leaves in the Good Forest; water is flowing in the river; and small mangos dangle from tree branches, waiting to be picked. But in the fields, I see skinny maize stalks that may not provide a plentiful harvest, and this worries me. Still, it is better than no crops at all, so I silently thank God and spend afternoons helping the ambuyas and the sisis pluck weeds in the fields, sharing stories and laughter. In the patchy grass pastures, I see only a few cows grazing slowly, and I help sekurus and hanzwadzis tend to them. Gogo has three new goats, which I help tie up in the bush every morning, just as I did when I was young.

  I am home, and although it feels exactly the same, I see everything differently. As I spend more time talking and sharing with the ambuyas and the sisis, I begin to sense the burden of unspoken fear buried beneath their joy. I feel sadness return to me and then my own fear, as I viscerally remember what it’s like to live through and barely survive a drought. Gogo says it is like living with a very sick child, when any moment their soul could be called back to the heavenly father, leaving you with an unbearable pain that never entirely disappears. You live in constant dread, fearful from not knowing when or if the moment of loss will come, and how you will survive if it does.

  In Goromonzi, our land is all we have. The land is our provider. Just as Gogo taught me, we are children of the African soil. We survive and thrive with our land; we raise our animals off our land; we work hard and maintain our dignity and pride through our land. Without the rain, our land dies, and when it dies there is no life, and when there is no life we are left with nothing. We perish. And that is the fear I begin to see in the eyes of my people, in the eyes of each person in Goromonzi, young and old. Buried in each face, behind the strength and determination, underneath the smiles and laughter, there lies the deep fear that at any moment everything can change, everything can be taken away, leaving us with nothing: no crops, no cows, no food. Without the land’s bounty, we will starve. I know how it feels to be hungry, how painful it is to want for food and water and have none. This frightens me. What will happen to everyone here if the drought strikes again or a food shortage continues? How will Gogo survive?

  I take a break from plucking weeds to stand underneath the useless tree in Gogo’s field of maize. I see myself at eight years old, lying helplessly underneath this very tree, unable to move from hunger. I see the girl in the blue uniform give me a bowl of warm porridge and a bottle of water, and I hear her clear, melodious voice say, “As Africans we must uplift each other.”

  Suddenly, I know exactly what it means: to uplift others. The meaning of the words clicks in my head the way so many new words have done while studying at my new school. I imagine extending my hand and pulling up every person in my village to stand beside me, together and beloved; I imagine them safe and fed, and able to work to fulfill their own unique potential. I turn my head toward our small village at the top of the hill, realizing that even though I am still just a child, I now have much more than the rest of the sisis and hanzwadzis in my village. Unlike them, I now have the mukana for a good education, so I can dream bigger and accomplish more with my life; unlike them, I no longer have to worry about ever being hungry, or even the possibility of dying of hunger should another drought return. This is all too unfair.

  In this moment, I understand what I must do. I know that I must uplift others just as my life was once uplifted. Thanks to Uncle Sam, I now know that to be the girl in the blue uniform means working for the United Nations. I make a vow to God, promising that I too will become just like the girl who came to me on that fateful day, just in time. I will work to uplift my village and my community. This is my dream—to work for the United Nations. This is what I will do. No matter what.

  Your dream is a dream for your community.

  —Zimbabwean proverb

  7

  “Miracles happen all the time, we just have to recognize them for what they are,” Gogo always told me. It is 2003, three years since I first arrived in London, and a miracle has happened to me. I am still at the London College, completely energized by all that I’m learning, and still working part-time at the recruitment agency to pay my fees. To strengthen my knowledge of the United Nations, I also now intern once a week at the United Nations Association (UNA-UK), a charity organization dedicated to supporting the global work of the UN. My days are long, and although I am often weary and hungry when I step into the bus to head home, I always climb the stairs to the top deck on the big red buses. I marvel at the fact that when I arrived in London, I was an outsider trying to steal a glance through the windows. Now I am a passenger, and from this vantage point I can soak in all the different neighborhoods of the city as the bus shuttles past schools and shops and people from all over the world walking along the streets. More and more I feel as though I am a part of this place and I feel a satisfying sense of fulfillment, because each moment is saturated wit
h meaning and purpose and challenge. Every day I feel myself growing, expanding, getting one step closer to putting my dream in motion.

  So when I am sitting behind my desk in the windowless basement of the UNA-UK and read a job posting in the Guardian newspaper, my heart rate skyrockets. Could it be? I read the announcement carefully again and again, just to be sure I am not imagining it, my heart leaping in my throat. Gogo was right. I have witnessed a miracle. There is simply no other explanation.

  The United Nations has just established a project team in London to work on a one-year assignment focused on HIV/AIDS in Africa. This is it. This is the mukana I have been waiting for. I look around the stark basement room and practically expect the walls to melt, it all feels so surreal. My hands start to shake and sweat beads on my forehead. It is as if God has brought the United Nations to me from Geneva. I thought for years I had come to the wrong place, but it seems I am in just the right place after all; it has simply taken three long years of hard work and keeping my faith to find it—or, more accurately, for it to find me.

  I take a deep breath. Yes, it is absolutely the perfect miracle; sadly, I could not be less qualified. The job vacancy calls for a PhD researcher with twelve years research experience. Okay, I do not have that. But the post also indicates that this is an African project to be led by Africans for Africans—and I am African, and I speak several African languages, as well as French, which is spoken by most countries in the western region of Africa. Most importantly, I have field expertise that will be a real asset to any project team dedicated to this issue.

  I set the newspaper down and close my eyes. I will apply for this job, I think, and I will get it. In my body I feel a visceral epiphany, that all those years working at the HIV/AIDS clinics in Zimbabwe must have been part of preparing me for this moment. I have the stories of patients and families seared into my heart and mind. I can practically see their faces and hear their stories as if they are happening now instead of years earlier.