July 1990
Coming from the heat of a Texas summer to the cold of Zimbabwe’s winter is a shock. But it’s a good shock to breathe African air again, its crispness invading my nostrils. My mother, father, my older sister, my two younger brothers, and myself are returning home to Sanyati after our medical leave in the States for Mama’s breast cancer. I had to finish fourth grade in America, and I’m glad that Mama can go back to homeschooling me now.
At the Harare airport, “Uncle” Barry, another missionary, picks us up, and takes us to the guest house, where we spend two nights before driving to Sanyati. The three-hour drive from Harare seems interminable because I’m so excited to be in our house again.
At last, we turn from the paved road onto the dirt road to the Sanyati mission station. At the first curve in the road is the hospital. Some adults are sitting on the low wall at the entrance drinking afternoon tea: the hospital administrator, the chaplain, other hospital staff. When they see our car, they wave wildly. Daddy stops the car and exits to greet these people who have missed having him work at Sanyati Baptist Hospital. He shakes hands with everyone, while Mama exits the car.
“Welcome back, Amai Boone,” they greet her. Mama shakes their hands. They call hello to us kids through the rolled-down windows, and we say hello back. Someone has run back into the hospital and come back with a sign that says, “Welcome, Dr. Bunne and family.” They misspelled “Boone.”
Daddy sees the sign. He cups his hands and claps them together to make a hollow thump as he says “Mazvita.” Thank you. “Thank you. That is very nice.”
A few neighborhood children nearby see the commotion and run towards the car. Daddy gets back in to finish the drive to the house. There’s cheering and shouting and thumping on the outside of the vehicle. I see dust flying up from the wheels clouding over smiling faces, people celebrating our return.
As we drive down the main dirt road, some of the kids run in front of the car to herald us. More and more people hear the noise and join the crowd, jogging behind our car, around the car, surrounding us. “Doctah Boone! Doctoh Boone!” they are chanting.
When we drive under the mahogany tree, we slow to a crawl because of all the people around us; Daddy can hardly keep the car going so slowly without the clutch stalling. I look out the window and see all the neighborhood kids I know: Pepetuia, Enos, Florence, Winnie, Gamuchirai, Loveness, and my best friend Runyararo. And many children I don’t know: siblings of my friends, other children who see the crowd and the varungu and join in the excitement.
In our yard, as we exit the car, they crowd arounds us, shouting.
“Hello, Boone family!”
“Welcome back!”
I see another sign, made from an old piece of cardboard, written in pencil and ink pen. It says, “Welcome home.”
Welcome home, I think. Yes, this is home.
Zimbabweans do not typically give hugs; they shake hands. But I hug Runya when I’m able to reach her.
“I missed you,” I say above the din.
“Me, I missed you as well,” she replies. “My best friend.”
Mama doesn’t notice immediately; it was an insignificant robbery. In the evening, when she is in her room, she sees the curtain blowing. She discovers a large jagged hole in the window and begins to look through the house to see what’s been taken. Amazingly, the few jewelry items she left here before our sudden medical leave, hidden at the back of a closet shelf, are untouched. No books have been taken, no kitchen items. There are a few clothing items gone, a pair of men’s shoes. And she notices that food from the deep freezer was taken. Meats, frozen vegetables, an old frozen casserole in a glass dish: things that we left when we departed Zimbabwe in a hurry.
During the prayer before dinner, Mama and Daddy thank God that more was not stolen. The robbery could have been significantly damaging with monetary and sentimental losses, but so little was taken.
In the coming rainy season, Mama will search for her good umbrella, not be able find it, and realize that it too had been stolen.
Daddy says that it says something about the person who robbed our house. He or she was desperate for everyday items, for food to eat and to feed his family, for a pair of solid shoes, for a good umbrella.
***
Another year of homeschooling begins in August. My sister Faith is in seventh grade, I am in fifth grade, Mark is in third, and Joseph is starting kindergarten. On school days, we do our work in the study/homeschool room or at the table. I don’t like school very much, and I always look forward to Saturdays.
In a footlocker brought back with us from the States, are a few pairs of roller skates. Now, on Saturday mornings, when the local primary school is devoid of students and teachers, my siblings and I like to go roller skating there. The primary school has the only thing reminiscent of a sidewalk in Sanyati. The main part of the school is four long buildings in a square that open up to a courtyard in the center. The outdoor “hallways” of the buildings are smoothed cement, perfect for roller skating.
After breakfast, Faith, our brothers, and I ride our bicycles to the school, our skates tied together and hanging around the backs our necks. Joseph rides his tricycle, so we have to go slowly. The gate to the school is almost always unlocked; we enter, put on our skates and roll up and down the hallways.
Faith invents a game called “Interstate Highway.” We skate on the right-hand side, as one drives in America on the right side of the road, and then turn around and ride back on the opposite side. We skate quickly to muster up enough speed to coast, then squat down and roll the rest of the way in a squatting position, like a car. Sometimes, we play Interstate Highway at home too, skating and squatting in our hallway.
We go home, rosy-cheeked from exertion and ask Mama for a snack. She makes the usual granola-peanuts-raisins-chocolate chip mixture and hands it out in little snack bowls with a spoon.
Another highlight of our Saturdays is a children’s radio drama called “Adventures in Odyssey,” produced in America about residents of a town named Odyssey. A Zimbabwe radio station picks up the program and airs it on Saturday mornings at 11:00.
At five-till, Mama calls us to her room, and we jump onto her double bed. She fiddles with the silver knob on the radio after pulling up the antenna as far as it will go. Sometimes the station comes through clearly, clear as the fresh deep water of the cave pools in Masvingo. Other times, there is so much static, we can barely understand the words.
It begins with “Previously, on Adventures in Odyssey…” and we listen rapt for the next thirty minutes. During the commercial breaks, the station airs ads about PK chewing gum and Coca-Cola, while we run off for bathroom breaks.
***
A new treat is a television in our house. The Corleys, another missionary couple in Sanyati, are on furlough and gave us their tv to use while they’re gone.
Daddy sets up the tv on top of a cabinet. Inside the cabinet, we have a handful of VHS tapes, including Bambi and Cinderella, given to us by our church in America before we first moved to Zimbabwe. The Corleys pass on a few of their VHS’s to us: cartoons, movies, the latest Olympics recorded from TV in America. Now, in addition to reading nights, game nights, and slow-motion wrestling, we can have movie nights. We come to know and love movies like The Fox and the Hound, In Search of the Castaways, and The Swiss Family Robinson. We watch these movies over and over again, my siblings and I memorizing the funniest lines, repeating them afterwards till we hold our sides with laughter: “Me be smart too” and “You’re such a little toddler.”
Our TV even receives one Zimbabwean channel. It consistently has a static line through the screen, and the display often blips. We catch a program called “Once Upon a Hamster,” produced by ZBC, and we think it’s hilarious.
We also love the commercial for Aroma bread:
So nice to bite! And tasty too.
Aroma fresh bread from Aroma to you.
We laugh quoting the tag line from commercials for Chibuku: Hari Yemadzisahwira — “cup for friends,” a beer that brings friends together. Chibuku is an African beer, made from sorghum or maize. It’s sold in plastic tubs and has to be shaken before drinking. It’s a cheap-man’s beer, and commercials show a happy Black man savoring his Chibuku.
***
Sometimes on weekday afternoons or on a Saturday, we drive to Arda township. There is a swimming pool in Arda. It is at the Arda Country Club, which has ridiculously cheap (in American dollars) yearly dues. The guest house there is rarely in use, and the restaurant will be open only a handful of times in all our years in Zimbabwe. I don’t know who runs the club, but I know that not many people are members because they can’t afford it, so it’s not kept up well. Sometimes it’s closed when it’s supposed to be open. The tennis courts are in disrepair: cracked surfaces, torn nets, and vines growing over the fences around it.
Sometimes, the water is clean and clear. Other times, it is mostly clear, but with algae growing on the sides of the walls. Once, the pool was so dirty and green that we saw a three-foot monitor lizard crawling out of the water, scurrying away across the yard. Only a handful of times over our Zimbabwean years, the pool was so green and brown that we don’t want to get in, but a little green didn’t stop us.
I think of myself as an African kid; slime and dirt and monitor lizards don’t scare me. Plus, when we’re at the pool, we can look for the Vervet monkeys that occasionally sit in the trees around the tennis court or near the pool.
And sometimes we go to the Munyati River, taking a turn-off road from the Arda road. Daddy parks the car at the bridge that goes across the riverbed, and we scramble down the steep dirt-and-rock hillside, sometimes slipping onto our bottoms.
When the riverbed is dry, which is the majority of the time, or mostly dry with tiny patches of water, I love to search for geodes. The riverbed is full of rocks and sandy patches. The rocks are mostly small, with occasional boulders rising out of the sandy bed. I look for round rocks; the rounder the rock, the more likely there are crystals inside. I break open the small rock with a bigger rock, and I find loads of geodes this way.
I love collecting other beautiful rocks from the Munyati: scarlet smooth ones, yellow-amber swirl ones, rose quartz, burgundy rocks etched with water lines, and perfectly round ones.
During the rainy season, when the Munyati River is full, we don’t go as often. When we do, we gaze at the swiftly flowing river, throw rocks into the water, or watch a lanky Zimbabwean boy fishing from the edge. The water has bilharzia in it, which causes terrible diarrhea, so we can’t play in the Munyati.
“But, Daddy,” I say, pointing to the boy with the make-shift fishing pole, “How can he eat fish from this water and not get sick with bilharzia.”
“They probably do get sick,” he answers. “But they might not have a choice. They might need the food. Or maybe their stomachs are stronger than ours.”
But I’m confused by this. I want to have as strong a stomach as the boy who’s fishing.
***
In rural Zimbabwe, families sweep the area outside their homes or huts. They pull up bushes and plants or hack them down with a machete. The brush-clearing and sweeping helps with snake and rodent prevention. The grass surrounding the home dies, either because it’s pulled up or because of foot traffic. Dust loosens from the dirt, gets kicked up by moving feet, and then is tracked into the dwelling. Thus, the continual sweeping of the area.
Brooms are made out of a handful of long jacaranda twigs, tied together at the top, or of thick savannah grass. Rarely, I see a store-brought broom. I see mothers bending low, with babies tied on their backs, sweeping away the dust around their huts, eroding it to the next layer of hard dirt. I see girls, even younger than I, sweeping around the tiny two-room or three-room family homes.
I wish that I would be given the job of sweeping outside around our house. I want to use a brush broom and whisk away the loose dirt and sand. My parents have never assigned me this job, and one day, I decide to just do it. Our front yard is too sandy and too big, so I choose the courtyard, fully enclosed. Our family has a couple of brooms, all store-bought, and I pick the long-handled push broom for my job. I take it outside and start at one end of the courtyard. I didn’t realize how tiring and long the work would be. The more dirt I sweep forward, the harder it is to keep going. We have grass in our yard, and sweeping the growing piles of sand over the clusters of grass proves difficult.
My arms and shoulders grow tired, but the thought of how pleased Daddy will be when he sees I have “cleaned” the courtyard makes me push on. When I am about half-way done and have swept around the young three-branched jacaranda tree in the middle, I lean the broom against the tree. It’s October, the hottest month of the year, and the air is baking. I wipe my forehead, but my hands are so dirty, I make a mud smear across it. I rest on the porch in the shade, but it’s too hot, and I’ll have to finish the job later.
When Daddy comes home, I proudly show him the half of the courtyard I’ve swept. “Oh no!” he exclaims. “Why did you do that?”
“I— because that’s what Zimbabweans do,” I say in defense.
“No, that’s not good. It causes erosion and kills the grass.”
“I’m sorry,” I stammer. I still don’t understand.
Daddy seems to soften. “It’s okay. Just don’t do it anymore. You’ll have to push the dirt back over the yard.”
“Okaaay,” I concede. It takes me ages to re-spread the sand back around the courtyard. While I’m doing it, I try not to look towards the house. I’m worried that Daddy is at the window watching me and shaking his head, and I’m so embarrassed.
I tried to be like my Zimbabwean friends, and I failed.
If I’m not Zimbabwean, and I don’t feel American, what am I supposed to be?
—-
Hope Elizabeth Kidd is in the MFA program at the City College of New York. She lives in Harlem with her husband, her five children, and an assortment of pets in an 800-square foot apartment. For non-fiction, Hope enjoys writing about motherhood, mental health, and body image, and she is writing a memoir about her childhood in Zimbabwe. She has been published in MUTHA magazine and in the print anthology “Fish Gather to Listen” (Horns and Rattles Press).
© 2023, Hope Elizabeth Kidd
Halfway Down the Stairs 