Despite my vivid description of the 18 April, 1980, in This September Sun, in reality, I have a very, very vague recollection of the day. It may even have been the day after. We were living in Redcliff and there was a small side gate leading into the garden. My memory is standing here while my dad showed my older sister and I the headlines of the newspaper that said that Zimbabwe was now Independent.
My grandfather did not burn the British flag, but he certainly could have if given half the chance. Instead, he wrote long letters full of dire warnings to various British newspapers. He was an old colonial hand, forced to leave India in the dead of night due to all the political trouble there after the partition, and he expected the same thing would happen here.
In many ways he was right: there was a lot of political trouble in the 1980s, especially where we were living in Matabeleland. I don't remember very much of the Rhodesian bush war. I remember travelling in convoys and the day we missed the convoy home from Kariba. My dad told my sister and I to lie on the floor of the car and we drove the whole journey home like that. On another occasion when we were living in Mhangura, we had to hide in the corridor of the house as some minor gun battle was fought outside.
The times when I was most afraid was during the Gukuruhundi era in the early 1980s. We lived on a mine, 30 kilometres from Bulawayo and attacks farmhouses were very common so i feared the mine might also be a target. When I was nine, a girl in my sister's class and her older sister were taken hostage with their grandparents in their farmhouse, tied up and shot dead. It is only looking back at my life that I realise how traumatised I was by this event and the deep anxiety it inculcated in me. I used to lie in bed at night, planning what I would do if we were attacked and driving myself mad, checking the security fence. It is one of the reasons I have never been able to play hide and seek. Even as an adult, the thought of someone trying to find me when I am hiding from them, makes me very uneasy.
Today we actually forgot it was Independence Day; it was only when Elizabeth did not come in to work that it dawned on us. Elizabeth herself had also forgotten and was only reminded by her grandson. These days, every day is like the one that went before and the same is true of the life of Zimbabwe. Everything has changed, but everything still stays the same.
In the afternoon, I take Sian for a driving lesson in a big deserted area near us. A young boy is there with his mother and it is obvious that he is also learning to drive: his mother's face has that fixed look of practised calm disguising sheer terror that parents have when teaching their children how to drive. Sian does well, although the lyrics of a-ha's Stay On These Roads spring to mind more than once as she tends to look at what is going on outside the window rather than concentrating on the road ahead.
Just before I fall asleep I remember a t-shirt my sister had. It was red and it had the Rhodesian flag on it and the words: 'I'm a Rhodesian Rebel'. My mum wouldn't let her wear it after Independence and I think it got cut up and became a floor cloth. There's an analogy to be made there, but at this point, I don't know what it is.
Today we actually forgot it was Independence Day; it was only when Elizabeth did not come in to work that it dawned on us. Elizabeth herself had also forgotten and was only reminded by her grandson. These days, every day is like the one that went before and the same is true of the life of Zimbabwe. Everything has changed, but everything still stays the same.
In the afternoon, I take Sian for a driving lesson in a big deserted area near us. A young boy is there with his mother and it is obvious that he is also learning to drive: his mother's face has that fixed look of practised calm disguising sheer terror that parents have when teaching their children how to drive. Sian does well, although the lyrics of a-ha's Stay On These Roads spring to mind more than once as she tends to look at what is going on outside the window rather than concentrating on the road ahead.
Just before I fall asleep I remember a t-shirt my sister had. It was red and it had the Rhodesian flag on it and the words: 'I'm a Rhodesian Rebel'. My mum wouldn't let her wear it after Independence and I think it got cut up and became a floor cloth. There's an analogy to be made there, but at this point, I don't know what it is.
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