When Themba went to China!

Being black in China.

I AM not at all surprised that parliamentarians who went to China last month ended up splitting with some members of the group getting lost, stranded and missing the scheduled return flight. Tales I have heard and scenes I have seen in my four-decade long life have led me to conclude that something happens to Zimbos when they cross the seas (or rivers) and go to foreign lands. As if some horns of some sort suddenly appear and all hell breaks loose. Talk about some magnified version of “Themba comes to town”!

Those that are familiar with the childhood tales of when Themba, a rural boy, went to town for the very first time, will know what happens when Themba is inundated by overwhelmingly new experiences which all but titillate his senses, blinding his common cause and rendering him giddy and ungovernable. Well, this time around, Themba went to China!

Hoarding greed
That some acrimony (as expressed in a reported rebellion) would all of a sudden exist, with underlying feelings of mistrust and doubt of compatriots; a need to compete, outdo and outfox; maximise benefit by squeezing an opportunity until blood comes out; the vaulting desire to emerge as the one who knows best how to work the foreign lands; and all this against an all consuming curiosity, giddy excitement and anticipation that awakens and heightens all manner of hoarding greed, like one never knew they had before – is a well played out scene in many lands in the Diaspora where our daughters and sons, sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers of the soil find themselves in their numbers.  And I don’t just talk from nothing. It’s not like I am taking these things out of a hat. I have some real life experiences to prove this. Two distinct ones actually.

Cross-border trips
My mom was one of the first groups of women to do the cross border buying and selling ventures when they started back in the day in the late 70s and the early 80s. Back when women from the hoods would, in clubs, make the trek to South Africa and then a bit later on Botswana also became a lucrative destination. Living across some hill in Marimba Park, my mom would join some clubs in Kambuzuma, where a hired bus would take them to Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban or other such destinations. The clubs of women would spend a few days on shopping sprees and return home with merchandise for re-sale. There were always stories of acrimony, fighting, bickering and turning against each other and defying advice amongst the women and more of ten than not, many of them would return not talking to each other or having sold each other out at the border and what not. I would always observe that once back on home soil, bickering parties would ordinarily relate well which was not the case once on foreign ground.

My own stay in the US
Fast forward to my own stay in the US in the mid 90s to the early 2000s – and the scene was much the same. It was always disheartening to see how much bad blood was created amongst Zimbos as they fought, often subtlely and at times overtly, to outdo each other, each one struggling to emerge as the one who knows how to work the foreign lands and foreigners best. I personally found that that behaviour left such a sour taste within my mouth that at some point I made a decision to engage compatriots with caution and to avoid any whom I felt were on these rat races of outdoing and outfoxing. For me such antics are what I blamed for the lack of unity amongst Zimbos. I always did admire so the camaraderie and unity shown by the Nigerians, Kenyans and others and wondered why as countrymen and countrywomen we could never cleave together like others did. To this day I still am not sure why it is so.

Untold hunger unleashed
Having seen these scenarios play out a little too often I was not surprised at all to hear that a certain MP, Hon. Paradza Chakona thought of leading a “rebellion” during the legislators trip which had been organised by leader of the Friends of China, MP, Mandi Chimene supposedly to expose less travelled legislators to foreign lands. Such rebellion is often born out of the suspicion that our fellows are not telling us everything; a distrust that some additional benefit could be withheld; and that by ourselves we can piggy back on what the Chimenes of this world open our eyes to and maximise benefit by milking an opportunity until it bleeds without being limited by another mere mortal! This belief unleashes an untold hunger and greed to get the most, and more and more and more from a given situation, location or venture.

Kith and kin in Diaspora can tell you
While the Chakonas of this world may often act in bad faith and create unnecessary acrimony, bad blood not to mention the harm to national image; it is in fact true that at times, some Chimenes do withhold some information. Without concluding that Chimene did so in this particular instance I will go ahead and say — out there in the Diaspora there are many Chimenes and Chakaonas whose horns come out in the Diaspora, ask your kin and kith out there. There will have buckets of tales to tell y’all!
●The Fabulous Forties column is for all readers: readers in their forties; readers who were in their forties and who care to remember what it was like; and those readers still looking ahead to their forties and would like a foretaste. Contact: maggiemzumara@yahoo.ie