- A Zimbabwean in the Diaspora phoned me this week and
told me how desperately she longs to come home. She misses everything so
much: familiar faces and beautiful places, old friends and casual acquaintances,
the overwhelming friendliness of people and of course the glorious climate
and magnificent countryside.
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- She asked me how things were now in Zimbabwe and I replied
that they are very bad, and still getting worse. You cannot really describe
what a hundred thousand percent inflation looks like, or shops without
food or hospitals without medicine. My friend, like so many others that
have been struggling to survive these years in exile in foreign countries,
wonders when she will be able to come home. She says she meets Zimbabweans
all the time and always the talk is of home and plans for the day when
they can return. Everyone wonders if it will be soon, asks if March 2008
will finally see an end to the need for exile.
-
- My friend asked if anything was as she remembered it
at home and I looked out of the window. On the surface and for a few minutes
nothing at all had changed. The sun is still bright and the sky blue; babblers
and bulbuls splash in the birdbath; the Msasa trees are covered in new
pods and the wild orange trees in hard, green, cricket-ball fruits. In
the canopy of trees overhead the voice of an Oriole sings out again and
again and a Paradise Flycatcher, still with its long orange breeding tail,
flits backwards and forwards. Children still play on the streets with home
made footballs and roll bicycle rims along dusty paths. On the roadside
women still sit selling tomatoes and avocadoes that they've carefully arranged
into pyramids. Some even have a few ground nuts for sale but like most
things they are a luxury - an enamel cupful for two and a half million
dollars tipped into a newspaper cone. The ordinary people are still the
same too, friendly, courteous, smiling, welcoming and generous.
-
- After the conversation with my friend, I felt so sad
about this great extended family of Zimbabweans now living away from home.
Such trauma we have all been through these past nine years - those of us
who have stayed and those who have gone. But we still have one thing in
common and that is that now, after nine years of struggle, we have all
had enough. Now it is time for families to be reunited, communities to
be rebuilt and for Zimbabwe to stand straight, tall and proud again. It
is not too late.
-
- I close with a quote from Mahatma Gandhi: "When
I despair I always remember that all through history the way of truth and
love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time
they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall, always."
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-
- Until next time, thanks for reading,
-
-
- with love cathy.
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- Copyright cathy buckle 15th March 2008 <http://www.cathybuckle.com>www.cathybuckle.com
My books: "African Tears" and "Beyond Tears" are available
in South Africa from: <mailto:books@clarkesbooks.co.za>books@clarkesbooks.co.za
and in the UK from: <mailto:orders@africabookcentre.com>orders@africabookcentre.com
To subscribe/unsubscribe to this newsletter, please write to: <mailto:cbuckle@mango.zw>cbuckle@mango.zw
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