"So is Mr Old Mutare real?" Mr Old Mutare is 30-something's Mr Darcy-equivalent: they got together more than a year ago, then they split up. Now, after various non-serious dalliances on both sides, the two of them are finally engaged. There's just a small problem with paying bride-price, which is making the 30-something Lady have second (or is it third) thoughts...
"He could be but he doesn't really exist," she says enigmatically.
"Look," she explains, hugging the book I've just given her ("Can I keep it? I like to highlight things with a marker, you see, and I can't if I have to give it back"). "I have about five people who do exist and who I write about. Not too closely, of course."
"And I'm always listening out for ideas, for things people are talking about," to get inspiration, she adds. (Don't I do the same?). Some of what she writes is to alert people to things going on - the Small House issue, the way you can exploit phone recharge cards on New Year's Eve, before the computer system's been updated. "I want to say: Hey this is true and things shouldn't be like that."
"I write too," I tell her.
"You do? I have seven novels I've written at home, and I don't know what to do with them."
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
tracking down the 30-something lady
"It's you, isn't it?" I can't hide the triumph in my voice. "You are the 30-something Lady!"
I've been looking for this writer for months. She writes a column in the local paper called Diary of a 30-something Lady. I know I'm not the only one who looks eagerly for the tell-tale red heart on the leisure pages: other readers text in advice and comments to Zimbabwe's Bridget Jones. ("Diary of a 30-something needs more sugar in it:" someone suggested last month).
Through the last years of Zimbabwe's crisis, she's written faithfully about what it means to survive as a professional 30-something singleton when your salary doesn't arrive in the bank at the end of the month and when the power keeps getting cut (but the bills keep going up). She writes about dress dilemmas, her love of shopping, the problems of styling her hair, weekends away in the Vumba mountains, about watching her married friends with kids ("I would just like to have lunch one day with my friend without the kids or the maid or relatives tagging along. Now every conversation is interrupted by small voices,") She writes about her men dilemmas -- Mr Gorgeous, Mr IT, Mr Old Mutare, Stan: which should she marry -- and dealing with prospective mothers-in-law who are intensely suspicious of her (why isn't she married and yet she's past 30?). She observes friends who've got into relationship messes: her Small House friend (who's dating a married man), her friend who's HIV-positive -- and talks about the refuge of church on Sundays. Her column's a refreshing lively look at life in Zimbabwe's vibrant, never-cowed middle-classes, struggling to better themselves instead of crumbling in despair.
And it's that struggle that helped me to find her. She writes anonymously --"90 percent of it is true," she tells me now, standing on the steps of the church-building. "Ten percent isn't. I don't want to get sued."
I've had my suspicions for a while. I'd noticed that a column on dress sense that appears in the paper was similarly well-written (though prescriptive rather than descriptive). I'd wondered if it was the same woman, Ann R. But how to prove it? Then the author of the dress column was interviewed by an English lit. teacher who publishes study guide-pieces on Animal Farm in the paper. In that piece, Ann R revealed she was "setting up a coffee shop." I cut out the interview, and asked around for new coffee shops in town. No-one seemed to know anything. There were still three cafes"up-town" -- and goodness knows the ladies-who-lunch would have surely have heard of a new one. Meantime, the 30-something Lady had spoken of her new coffee shop, and her plans to take time off from work to get the business off the ground. Curiouser and curiouser...or maybe closer and closer. I put a book I thought she'd like into my car: The Dress Doctor, by Bessie Head (an autobiography of a dresser-to-the-(film)-stars) and drove around with its plastic cover glinting at me on the passenger seat for a few days. Then I took my child to his sports club, organised by enthusiastic 20-somethings at a local church on Wednesday afternoons. Normally I drop him at the door but today, I had to pay. I walked inside... and found a new coffee shop, the inside draped in vibrant blue. And there, inside, was a girl (30-something, definitely) wearing bouncy orange tear-drop ear-rings and the kind of wedge shoes that befit a fashion critic. I felt like I was meeting a friend.
"You're not supposed to know it's me," she laughs. "But people are guessing."
I've been looking for this writer for months. She writes a column in the local paper called Diary of a 30-something Lady. I know I'm not the only one who looks eagerly for the tell-tale red heart on the leisure pages: other readers text in advice and comments to Zimbabwe's Bridget Jones. ("Diary of a 30-something needs more sugar in it:" someone suggested last month).
Through the last years of Zimbabwe's crisis, she's written faithfully about what it means to survive as a professional 30-something singleton when your salary doesn't arrive in the bank at the end of the month and when the power keeps getting cut (but the bills keep going up). She writes about dress dilemmas, her love of shopping, the problems of styling her hair, weekends away in the Vumba mountains, about watching her married friends with kids ("I would just like to have lunch one day with my friend without the kids or the maid or relatives tagging along. Now every conversation is interrupted by small voices,") She writes about her men dilemmas -- Mr Gorgeous, Mr IT, Mr Old Mutare, Stan: which should she marry -- and dealing with prospective mothers-in-law who are intensely suspicious of her (why isn't she married and yet she's past 30?). She observes friends who've got into relationship messes: her Small House friend (who's dating a married man), her friend who's HIV-positive -- and talks about the refuge of church on Sundays. Her column's a refreshing lively look at life in Zimbabwe's vibrant, never-cowed middle-classes, struggling to better themselves instead of crumbling in despair.
And it's that struggle that helped me to find her. She writes anonymously --"90 percent of it is true," she tells me now, standing on the steps of the church-building. "Ten percent isn't. I don't want to get sued."
I've had my suspicions for a while. I'd noticed that a column on dress sense that appears in the paper was similarly well-written (though prescriptive rather than descriptive). I'd wondered if it was the same woman, Ann R. But how to prove it? Then the author of the dress column was interviewed by an English lit. teacher who publishes study guide-pieces on Animal Farm in the paper. In that piece, Ann R revealed she was "setting up a coffee shop." I cut out the interview, and asked around for new coffee shops in town. No-one seemed to know anything. There were still three cafes"up-town" -- and goodness knows the ladies-who-lunch would have surely have heard of a new one. Meantime, the 30-something Lady had spoken of her new coffee shop, and her plans to take time off from work to get the business off the ground. Curiouser and curiouser...or maybe closer and closer. I put a book I thought she'd like into my car: The Dress Doctor, by Bessie Head (an autobiography of a dresser-to-the-(film)-stars) and drove around with its plastic cover glinting at me on the passenger seat for a few days. Then I took my child to his sports club, organised by enthusiastic 20-somethings at a local church on Wednesday afternoons. Normally I drop him at the door but today, I had to pay. I walked inside... and found a new coffee shop, the inside draped in vibrant blue. And there, inside, was a girl (30-something, definitely) wearing bouncy orange tear-drop ear-rings and the kind of wedge shoes that befit a fashion critic. I felt like I was meeting a friend.
"You're not supposed to know it's me," she laughs. "But people are guessing."
leaving sale
"I think this year's going to be bad," she says as her children play on the rug. End of the afternoon. The sun dapples on the freshly-cut grass. Kids swing on the home climbing frame to the chink of wine glasses. Idyllic, non? "You know, that man you told to clear out of the playground M?" She turns to a friend. He was selling pirated DVDs inside the walls of a local playgroup. M, a mother of two, had asked him to move. "He said, you're racist. He said he's a war veteran - " "Rubbish --" says M, who's hosting a leaving sale (crockery, tired baby towels, crocheted blankets, braziers: how many of these sales have I attended willingly or unwillingly in the last 10 years?) -- "He's not old enough." "But that's what he said," she insists. "And he said: just wait for the elections. We're going to sort you whites out." It's there so often on both sides, that hatred, so near the surface, waiting for the trigger.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
still happening
They've been given 2 days to get off the farm, Mrs G says. "Drunken mobs" are at the gate. Someone caught and killed a buck and pinned it to the farmhouse fence. The warning: If they speak to the media, things will be worse for them. How can this still be happening, 10 years later? The embassy official says he can't help: in theory the family is protected by a BIPPA - an investment protection agreement -- but "there is no law and order." So...you're on your own. I sit here and type less than an hour away from where all this is taking place and a family is pulling out its suitcases and scrabbling for the photo albums and think: the story has not changed. Only now, no-one is interested, outraged, bothered. Not even those supposed to protect you. And I too feel weary with it all.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
splodge
I linger by a shop window filled with fluorescent Smartie-coloured shoes, sandals, flip-flop things with satin roses on. Sometimes I'm brought by a standstill by visions of plenty here. The memory of --well, nothing -- is still fresh.
The woman leans against me conspiratorially."You've got a mark on the back of your skirt."
I whip round. It's true, some sort of a damp-looking splodge. "Thanks for telling me," I say but I'm mortified: how many other passers-by have seen it? I grasp my basket and -- with my free hand -- try to manoevre a box of Cornflakes round my behind. It's a fair walk back to the car (past the parked black Mercedes with the Zimbabwe flag flying and the armed riot policeman in the back and the two businessmen in black suits who may or may not be visiting white businesses today as the indigenisation drive hots up: that's what they've been doing for the past week in this town) and the Cornflakes box is bulky and yellow and I'm not sure if I'm actually drawing attention to myself but what else am I supposed to do? How do other people manage or do they never get splodges? Will I be known forever more as the white-woman-with-the-splodge-on-the-back-of-her-dress?
Back in the car, I examine my skirt. The splodge I trace to the inside of my dress. And yes, it is my son's glow putty - the remnants of -- that didn't come off in the wash. You buy eggs of the plasticine-like stuff in OK supermarkets. It looks worse than it actually is.
But I'm glad that she stretched across the gap and told me.
The woman leans against me conspiratorially."You've got a mark on the back of your skirt."
I whip round. It's true, some sort of a damp-looking splodge. "Thanks for telling me," I say but I'm mortified: how many other passers-by have seen it? I grasp my basket and -- with my free hand -- try to manoevre a box of Cornflakes round my behind. It's a fair walk back to the car (past the parked black Mercedes with the Zimbabwe flag flying and the armed riot policeman in the back and the two businessmen in black suits who may or may not be visiting white businesses today as the indigenisation drive hots up: that's what they've been doing for the past week in this town) and the Cornflakes box is bulky and yellow and I'm not sure if I'm actually drawing attention to myself but what else am I supposed to do? How do other people manage or do they never get splodges? Will I be known forever more as the white-woman-with-the-splodge-on-the-back-of-her-dress?
Back in the car, I examine my skirt. The splodge I trace to the inside of my dress. And yes, it is my son's glow putty - the remnants of -- that didn't come off in the wash. You buy eggs of the plasticine-like stuff in OK supermarkets. It looks worse than it actually is.
But I'm glad that she stretched across the gap and told me.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
missing 'phone (or worse)
"He's lost his 'phone," I tell my mother-in-law. I need the number of a woman last seen at the swimming pool where my husband went to pick up our son (and presumably dropped the thing).
Losing a phone is a nightmare in our line of business. It's not so much the handset -- which can be replaced easily these days -- but the number. In a country where suspicion is rising, contacts often only answer the 'phone if they recognise your number.
It could take months to rebuild the trust -- and the phone book. My mother-in-law can hear the desperation in my voice.
"I just heard a terrible story," she says. "You remember DT? He used to come to stay with us."
"He was on a houseboat in Kariba," she says. Turns out he'd taken a small boat out fishing with other holidaymakers. As often happens, the boat drifted into weeds. He leant over to pull the motor into the boat ("As you have to," my mother-in-law points out. My father-in-law has done it lots of times) -- and a crocodile grabbed him by the arm. The boatman grabbed him round the middle, they tussled...and the crocodile got away with the hand.
"You get blase," she says. There was a time when somebody got their hand taken dipping their fingers in the way to get the maggot juice off. "After that happened we all put pails of water inside the boats. But then we stopped."
Sometimes I wonder if it's just us whites who get blase, who underestimate the ferocity of Zimbabwe's wildlife? I stayed in a lion park last year with Shona friends -- two middle-aged women -- who were extremely suspicious of game drives.
"Better to lose a 'phone than a hand," she finishes.
Later, we find the 'phone (under the passenger seat) and I'm doubly grateful.
Losing a phone is a nightmare in our line of business. It's not so much the handset -- which can be replaced easily these days -- but the number. In a country where suspicion is rising, contacts often only answer the 'phone if they recognise your number.
It could take months to rebuild the trust -- and the phone book. My mother-in-law can hear the desperation in my voice.
"I just heard a terrible story," she says. "You remember DT? He used to come to stay with us."
"He was on a houseboat in Kariba," she says. Turns out he'd taken a small boat out fishing with other holidaymakers. As often happens, the boat drifted into weeds. He leant over to pull the motor into the boat ("As you have to," my mother-in-law points out. My father-in-law has done it lots of times) -- and a crocodile grabbed him by the arm. The boatman grabbed him round the middle, they tussled...and the crocodile got away with the hand.
"You get blase," she says. There was a time when somebody got their hand taken dipping their fingers in the way to get the maggot juice off. "After that happened we all put pails of water inside the boats. But then we stopped."
Sometimes I wonder if it's just us whites who get blase, who underestimate the ferocity of Zimbabwe's wildlife? I stayed in a lion park last year with Shona friends -- two middle-aged women -- who were extremely suspicious of game drives.
"Better to lose a 'phone than a hand," she finishes.
Later, we find the 'phone (under the passenger seat) and I'm doubly grateful.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
trust
"Come on," he says. "We've been watching you. "
"I've run out of fuel," I say stupidly, swinging my jerry can. Bad time to run out of fuel. Shortages are rife once more. I have just run to the nearest garage to find they have only diesel. My child needs to be picked up NOW at a bus stop a good four kilometres away. I have no money on my cellphone. My husband's car is out of action because his tyre was spiked.
"Get in and we'll take you to the garage," he says.
The car is a black Merc. Three youngish guys inside. Everything my mother ever told me screams no. So I make a snap decision, and climb in.
The driver snaps down the central locking. But the windows are open. I think I could scream, if I needed to. I gabble worriedly about miscalculating how far 5 dollars of fuel will take me.
"You need to set your mileage clock," says the large one (Albert, he says he's called). They drive me to a garage. One of the three takes my jerrycan. I panic slightly, manage to unlock my door. Climb out. Get into the scrum by the pump. "How do you know him?" asks an attendant, gesturing at Albert. Who really is Albert, I wonder?
Should I slip away now? I climb back in. And of course, they drive me back to where my car sits abandoned, blinking on the side of the road. Help me pour petrol into the tank. Ask for my phone number, of course and 'phone five minutes later, just to check I'm OK.
No more, no less.
"I've run out of fuel," I say stupidly, swinging my jerry can. Bad time to run out of fuel. Shortages are rife once more. I have just run to the nearest garage to find they have only diesel. My child needs to be picked up NOW at a bus stop a good four kilometres away. I have no money on my cellphone. My husband's car is out of action because his tyre was spiked.
"Get in and we'll take you to the garage," he says.
The car is a black Merc. Three youngish guys inside. Everything my mother ever told me screams no. So I make a snap decision, and climb in.
The driver snaps down the central locking. But the windows are open. I think I could scream, if I needed to. I gabble worriedly about miscalculating how far 5 dollars of fuel will take me.
"You need to set your mileage clock," says the large one (Albert, he says he's called). They drive me to a garage. One of the three takes my jerrycan. I panic slightly, manage to unlock my door. Climb out. Get into the scrum by the pump. "How do you know him?" asks an attendant, gesturing at Albert. Who really is Albert, I wonder?
Should I slip away now? I climb back in. And of course, they drive me back to where my car sits abandoned, blinking on the side of the road. Help me pour petrol into the tank. Ask for my phone number, of course and 'phone five minutes later, just to check I'm OK.
No more, no less.
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