chivhu

The public swimming bath is on the edge of Chivhu, encircled by a crumbling white wall. It looks like a cemetery, especially with the pavement gravestone sellers who've set up shop outside the ornate gate. But if you crane your neck, you can just catch the flash of the blue walls inside. My mother-in-law remembers this place as Enkeldoorn, once an Afrikaaner farming stronghold. If you look in the 'phone book now -- the 2002 phone book, that is, no-one seems to have a newer one -- there are still lots of Afrikaans names in Chivhu. Few, if any, will be left. Max, a black mechanic, stops to chat through the passenger window. "Where are you from?" he wants to know. "What do you do?" "I used to be a farmer," my 70-something father-in-law says. "But then the government took my farm." "Look," says Max. He has, no doubt, looked at my mother-in-law's Pajero, the boxes of sandwiches and the bulging bags in the back. "Count your blessings. I was in UK with some of those white farmers. They were working in factories, working in Tescos." My father-in-law is silent. His own future looks uncertain: the rented house they were staying in has been sold from under their feet but he cannot leave his office job for another town or country: who else would employ a pensioner? "You will get all those things back," says Max. "If not your farm, then a business, something even more profitable." "You're right," says my father-in-law firmly. As we drive off and the border-bound trucks swish past us, there's a fresh breath of hope in the car. "Well, he was positive, wasn't he?" says my mother-in-law.