September 15

 

My brother-in-law arrives around midday from Marondera.  My dad is going to stay with my sister for a few weeks as she is leaving the country in November.  I find myself very emotional although of course he is coming back.  My dad drives me mad sometimes, but I do love him and it will be strange without him.

In the evening, I go to a grief support group that has just started.  It is a beautiful evening and the air is heavy with the scent of syringa, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow and jasmine.  The jacarandas are just starting to come out and even the sky is a pale violet.

I think in Zimbabwe, we live with so many layers of grief.  It is possible to sit and cry because that beautiful, intoxicating smell reminds you of past joy: your last term at school, the build up to the rains and the relief from heat.  Every day we have to live with that burden of the past: when things were better, when the buildings weren't chipped and broken, when the roads weren't pot-holed, when people's lives didn't hang in tatters.  It is easy, of course, to romanticise the past and, when you really do look back in the country's history, it is quite hard to find a perfect time.  However, I don't think anyone out there could describe the current time as a good one, unless, of course, you are a government minister.

I feel out grief as a people runs deep.  We have got used to waves of exodus as those who can look for greener pastures; we have got used to the 'brokeness' of things; we expect things not to work rather than being surprised that they don't; we use words like 'we used to' far too often.

It is not that it is impossible to happy; to say that would be very wrong.  I think life has just become much smaller.  I don't like going into the centre of town any more, I stick to certain places, shops at certain supermarkets and mix with certain people.