In the immigrations queue at Heathrow, an American oil worker fresh off a Mozambican rig asks me where I'm from. I have to take a genuine pause. "Nowhere anymore, really", I say, without further elaborating. "Oh dear", he says. He's on his way back to the US because his son has been in an accident and sustained serious head injuries.
It is a public holiday and the final day of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations. There are only about 5 people on the Underground that morning, and 4 of them are wearing coat tails and fancy hats, on their way to St Paul's Cathedral. The British have an amazing capacity to get completely carried away by public displays of, well, Britishness. Formerly Empire. They've had centuries of practice, I suppose. Based on the TV footage, it appears that the vast majority of celebrators were white, though the BBC was sure to re-play several times a short interview with a Muslim girl in a British-flag-hijab, and I catch a glimpse of a Sikh man in the crowds. I do hope they haven't exhausted all their ceremonial enthusiasm before the Olympics.
Later, in the cab with my Nigerian colleague, the white English working-class cab driver asks us where we're from. "Zimbabwe, originally", I say. "And my colleague here is from Nigeria".
Him: Oh, Zimbaah-bway. Did that used to be Rho-dee-shah?
Me: That's right...
Him: What does Zimbaah-bway mean anyway?
Me: It means 'houses of stone', from 'dzimba yemabwe'. After the historical Zimbabwe Ruins.
Him: And what about Rho-dee-shah?
Me: Oh, that was named after Cecil John Rhodes, the British coloniser.
Him: Well at least Zimbaah-bway means somefink. Rhodee-shah don't mean anyfink, does it? It's just a made-up name.
Me: I guess that's right...
Then the driver addresses my colleague:
"Nigeriaah, eh. D'you eat shaki then?"
T. thinks he's misheard, because he can't believe that a London cab driver would know what shaki -- the Nigerian tripe dish -- is. The driver waxes lyrical: "Yeah, me friend's mum's always sayin', 'Shaki's good for ya, shaki make you strong!' But once you know what it is...!" T. chuckles in disbelief. Welcome to the world in one city.
Speaking of origins, I returned to Zimbabwe recently. It was a genuinely interesting and contented visit. Our small diaspora family came together from three countries to celebrate my mother's 60th birthday and my father's successful open-heart surgery. We were surrounded by old friends that day in the winter afternoon sun -- all those who have stuck it out these past 12 years, despite everything. The generator hummed in the background (12-16 hour power cuts are still typical), and the lights, oven, kettle and other electrical appliances were carefully coordinated so as to avoid any untoward power failures that would affect the catering.
The same week, I attended the Harare International Festival of the Arts for the first time. A few days earlier on the plane, I was filled with juvenile excitement when celeb musician Oliver Mtukudzi sat down next to me. At the Festival itself, a host of old friends and teachers appeared, most of whom I had not seen in well over a decade. Many had returned to Harare specially for the occasion.
Turkey, England, Australia, the United States, Spain, South Africa: people have been everywhere, in exile of various kinds, carving out lives for themselves, bettering themselves however they can. One of the pianists, once an intimidating older star-musician at my primary school, and now the organiser of an annual music festival in a Turkish fishing village, gave a tear-jerking Beethoven performance in the Dutch Reformed Church downtown. I remember meeting her teenage MDC activist brother on a plane; I was struck by his apparent fearlessness. He was later arrested multiple times and tortured and, unsurprisingly, left the country afterwards. Yet still his sister is willing to return.
Also that week, we drove to Kariba, accompanying my mother on a work trip. There was more traffic on the roads that I've seen in many years, including numerous heavy trucks travelling to and from Zambia. The farmlands along the Chinhoyi-Karoi road are so overgrown and disused that within a few years no one will guess that there were ever any farms. According to a senior representative at National Foods Zimbabwe, the country now imports 80% of its wheat from...the Ukraine. And sourcing it from the Ukraine is 25% cheaper than sourcing it locally. Those stats are enough to make one's head spin rather wildly.
Yet there are other spheres where Zimbabwe has boosted its exports. In Kariba, for example, we visited the largest crocodile farm in the world. They supply the leather for Hermes' luxury designer handbags -- we're talking circa £6000 per bag and upwards. The farm's new HR manager had just returned to Zimbabwe from a decade in London, where he worked at a leading software firm. A bit different to crocodiles.
The following day we attended a graduation ceremony for one the training programmes that my mother's organisation funds. Wives and children gathered to watch their husbands and fathers, soft drinks were had all round, fun were poked at participants in a mix of Shona and English, and afterwards the catering ladies - who probably couldn't all fit in the tiny kitchen at the same time - fed sadza (maize porridge) and fried fish in voluminous cooking pots to some 80 people. The Zimbabwean hinterlands are full of interesting characters, and everyone has a story. One of the trainers, white, in his 60s and fluent in Shona, was born in Botswana, where his mother taught President Seretse Khama's English wife to speak Tswana.
And so ends another few weeks in the postcolony. Nowhere anymore is not too bad - just different.
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