ANYWHERE BUT ZIMBABWE
In the last edition of Jesuits and Friends Oskar Wermter SJ told us of some of the problems of living in Zimbabwe today. He continues his account of life in this troubled land
‘Tomorrow I’m flying to the UK. Can you write me a letter to the priest over there?’ Melania M. - a handsome young woman of twenty-two - well educated and keen to get on in life, sees no chance for herself in run-down Zimbabwe. Just helping mother around the tiny little house in Mbare, an old working class district in Harare, is just not good enough for her energy. She hopes an aunt, working in a London hospital, will get her a place to train as a nurse. Melania is also a Catechumen. Can she continue her instructions in Britain? I write a note to an unknown brother priest, asking him to receive her into his parish. She rushes off clutching the letter. She is so excited. There is still so much to do before departure time.
Government propaganda keeps denigrating the British government every hour of the day. Those old men, who once led the guerrilla war against Ian Smith and have ruled the country since 1980, hallucinate about Britain wanting to re-colonise Zimbabwe, and cannot free themselves from their obsession with the old enemy. But ordinary Zimbabweans, half of whom are under eighteen years of age - born since independence-dream of going to the UK to find work, earn British pounds and enjoy a high standard of living. If not to Britain, then to the US, Canada, Australia or New Zealand - or at least to South Africa or Botswana.
- Mrs Mapuranga is a mother of five, and yet quite lonely. One son is in the US, another works in neighbouring Mozambique’s thriving economy, a daughter is in South Africa, another daughter died of AIDS last year. Only the youngest is still in Zimbabwe.
- Mr Harawa, a retired headmaster and father of six, is frail and sick. Some kind-hearted woman in the parish keeps visiting him to do a bit of cleaning around his house. His wife went overseas to get a nursing job, and that was the end of their marriage. All his children are in America.
- Mrs Kuona lost her husband five years ago. She supports her three school-going children by cross-border trading in neighbouring Botswana. She has some clients there who give her temporary work as a domestic. Her children have to look after themselves much of the year.
There are supposed to be 3.4 million Zimbabweans outside the country: more than a million in the UK, 400,000 in the US, a huge number in South Africa as cross-border traders or permanent residents. The Zimbabwean government hopes these expatriates will provide the badly needed foreign currency by sending their precious British pounds or US dollars back home.
Dead rats are lying in the streets of Mbare, the live ones are scurrying over heaps of uncollected rubbish. Government is destroying the municipal administration controlled by the opposition. Slum-like conditions and gross overcrowding provide the breeding ground for sexual abuse of the young - especially AIDS orphans - and perpetuate the epidemic. But next to wooden hovels and tin shacks are well built, nicely furnished houses protected against rising crime by high walls and electric security fencing. More often than not such modest prosperity has been paid for by sons in the UK, a niece in Australia, or grandchildren in South Africa. Migration helps people to stay alive. But how long can families and marriages stand the strain? A wife may want to go off to ‘make money’ just for half a year. As a nurse she is offered a good position and stays on, the husband tries to join her, but is refused a visa. Eventually he just writes her off and starts a new relationship. Casual sexual encounters become a habit, fatal in an adult population which is 23% HIV positive.
How long can a country afford to lose its most enterprising young people? A young journalist friend of mine, thrown out by the country’s repressive media legislation, told me, ‘I’ll come back when things are better.’ But without him, who is going ‘to make things better?’ Maybe we will never see him again. Or can we hope that he will come back more experienced and better skilled, ready to rebuild our country?
Not all who ‘take the gap’ will make it. Many end up in great misery, exploited as illegal immigrants by unscrupulous employers, imprisoned as petty criminals; Caught without permits, many are deported, women may have to pay for jobs with ‘sexual favours’, especially in South Africa - a dangerous game in the most AIDS infested region of the world.
About 10% of Zimbabwe’s population is Catholic. Amongst the educated, the percentage may well be higher. What happens to them in their host countries? Women who regularly go as informal traders to South Africa have told me how happy they were to attend Mass ‘down south’ and how well they were received, feeling ‘home from home’. When a Zimbabwean priest said Mass in Stamford Hill, London there were so many parishioners greeting him in Shona - Zimbabwe’s main language - that he felt ‘as if in Highfield’, a suburb of Harare. Others never seem to make contact, or cannot get used to a sober style of liturgy, without the familiar singing, or just do not feel welcome.
A very committed parishioner finds it hard to understand why all her children, living and working in the UK, have joined ‘new churches’. Some of these new evangelical ‘ministries’ are tailor-made for black immigrants. Led by West African pastors, they inspire self-confidence in very insecure people and promise them prosperity and success - all in a free and easy style - which makes migrants, lost in a foreign land, feel accepted and at home. ‘I shall experience blessing in every area of my business and home...He causes prosperity on my business and ventures’, promises Pastor Ashimolowo’s website. His show has a prominent slot on Zimbabwe Television.
I hope to hear from Melania, that she has found her ‘home from home’ in the Catholic parish where she has knocked at the door to deliver that letter of mine. I wait for her parents to tell me that she has been baptised, in a faraway country, and yet in the same Church. Wherever the present ill-wind may blow our unhappy people, I hope someone will welcome them.
‘Tomorrow I’m flying to the UK. Can you write me a letter to the priest over there?’ Melania M. - a handsome young woman of twenty-two - well educated and keen to get on in life, sees no chance for herself in run-down Zimbabwe. Just helping mother around the tiny little house in Mbare, an old working class district in Harare, is just not good enough for her energy. She hopes an aunt, working in a London hospital, will get her a place to train as a nurse. Melania is also a Catechumen. Can she continue her instructions in Britain? I write a note to an unknown brother priest, asking him to receive her into his parish. She rushes off clutching the letter. She is so excited. There is still so much to do before departure time.
Government propaganda keeps denigrating the British government every hour of the day. Those old men, who once led the guerrilla war against Ian Smith and have ruled the country since 1980, hallucinate about Britain wanting to re-colonise Zimbabwe, and cannot free themselves from their obsession with the old enemy. But ordinary Zimbabweans, half of whom are under eighteen years of age - born since independence-dream of going to the UK to find work, earn British pounds and enjoy a high standard of living. If not to Britain, then to the US, Canada, Australia or New Zealand - or at least to South Africa or Botswana.
- Mrs Mapuranga is a mother of five, and yet quite lonely. One son is in the US, another works in neighbouring Mozambique’s thriving economy, a daughter is in South Africa, another daughter died of AIDS last year. Only the youngest is still in Zimbabwe.
- Mr Harawa, a retired headmaster and father of six, is frail and sick. Some kind-hearted woman in the parish keeps visiting him to do a bit of cleaning around his house. His wife went overseas to get a nursing job, and that was the end of their marriage. All his children are in America.
- Mrs Kuona lost her husband five years ago. She supports her three school-going children by cross-border trading in neighbouring Botswana. She has some clients there who give her temporary work as a domestic. Her children have to look after themselves much of the year.
There are supposed to be 3.4 million Zimbabweans outside the country: more than a million in the UK, 400,000 in the US, a huge number in South Africa as cross-border traders or permanent residents. The Zimbabwean government hopes these expatriates will provide the badly needed foreign currency by sending their precious British pounds or US dollars back home.
Dead rats are lying in the streets of Mbare, the live ones are scurrying over heaps of uncollected rubbish. Government is destroying the municipal administration controlled by the opposition. Slum-like conditions and gross overcrowding provide the breeding ground for sexual abuse of the young - especially AIDS orphans - and perpetuate the epidemic. But next to wooden hovels and tin shacks are well built, nicely furnished houses protected against rising crime by high walls and electric security fencing. More often than not such modest prosperity has been paid for by sons in the UK, a niece in Australia, or grandchildren in South Africa. Migration helps people to stay alive. But how long can families and marriages stand the strain? A wife may want to go off to ‘make money’ just for half a year. As a nurse she is offered a good position and stays on, the husband tries to join her, but is refused a visa. Eventually he just writes her off and starts a new relationship. Casual sexual encounters become a habit, fatal in an adult population which is 23% HIV positive.
How long can a country afford to lose its most enterprising young people? A young journalist friend of mine, thrown out by the country’s repressive media legislation, told me, ‘I’ll come back when things are better.’ But without him, who is going ‘to make things better?’ Maybe we will never see him again. Or can we hope that he will come back more experienced and better skilled, ready to rebuild our country?
Not all who ‘take the gap’ will make it. Many end up in great misery, exploited as illegal immigrants by unscrupulous employers, imprisoned as petty criminals; Caught without permits, many are deported, women may have to pay for jobs with ‘sexual favours’, especially in South Africa - a dangerous game in the most AIDS infested region of the world.
About 10% of Zimbabwe’s population is Catholic. Amongst the educated, the percentage may well be higher. What happens to them in their host countries? Women who regularly go as informal traders to South Africa have told me how happy they were to attend Mass ‘down south’ and how well they were received, feeling ‘home from home’. When a Zimbabwean priest said Mass in Stamford Hill, London there were so many parishioners greeting him in Shona - Zimbabwe’s main language - that he felt ‘as if in Highfield’, a suburb of Harare. Others never seem to make contact, or cannot get used to a sober style of liturgy, without the familiar singing, or just do not feel welcome.
A very committed parishioner finds it hard to understand why all her children, living and working in the UK, have joined ‘new churches’. Some of these new evangelical ‘ministries’ are tailor-made for black immigrants. Led by West African pastors, they inspire self-confidence in very insecure people and promise them prosperity and success - all in a free and easy style - which makes migrants, lost in a foreign land, feel accepted and at home. ‘I shall experience blessing in every area of my business and home...He causes prosperity on my business and ventures’, promises Pastor Ashimolowo’s website. His show has a prominent slot on Zimbabwe Television.
I hope to hear from Melania, that she has found her ‘home from home’ in the Catholic parish where she has knocked at the door to deliver that letter of mine. I wait for her parents to tell me that she has been baptised, in a faraway country, and yet in the same Church. Wherever the present ill-wind may blow our unhappy people, I hope someone will welcome them.