My Zimbabwe part I- from this Diasporan

This is the first in a series of blogs on my recent visit to Zimbabwe. They will be written as they want to be written, so here we go:

My Zimbabwe is beautiful. My Zimbabwe is radiant and vibrating with barely repressed energy. My Zimbabwe hums with possibilities, and potent power simmers like a mirage on its dazzling tarred roads. My Zimbabwe is rich in natural and human resources. Her people are “made of sterner stuff”. Her children are robust in spirit; resilient with defiance and determination in their eyes. Her children laugh from their gut; deep sincere infectious laughter that washes over their ragged clothes and bare feet, leaving them clothed in quiet dignity, heads held high, backs straight and shoulders square. Her children cry out, in quiet voice while quiet tears trail down their dusty faces and yet they laugh and they live. They do not want pity and they are contemptuous of patronage. They do not want hand outs and they do not need crutches and if there is an ear willing to listen, that ear will be privy to what they want, what they need, what they desire and dream about: Opportunity.

From the rural villages of Nyamaropa and Chivi, to the cities of Harare, Mutare, Masvingo and Bulawayo, I felt the energy, strength, determination and the hunger for a chance, an open doorway, or even a mere crack in the window of opportunity.  I saw Zimbabweans going about their daily lives, like hungry calves milking even the tiniest udder of opportunity they came across: selling produce, toothpicks and paper clips, making bracelets out of tiny springs from old parker pens, begging to guard your parked car for a dollar, while you attend to business in some office, selling boot leg movies and CD’s, braiding hair (“I will come to your house, mother”), pedaling barrels of second hand clothes from first world places, merchandizing firewood, air time cards, newspapers, biscuits and anything you can think of. I saw them.

 I witnessed the trendsetters, the go- getters, the dealers and the movers- and- shakers, strutting across the potholed streets as though they were marching purposefully down Oxford Street in London, or Michigan Avenue in Chicago; striding to some place, to take care of business, to close the next deal, to make that money: those Dollars, those Rands, and those other forexes.

 I saw Bright yellow Hummer jeeps, gas guzzling Escalades with Chrome rims. I saw women dressed in Gucci, Prada and carrying Coach hand bags while teetering on feet shod in Steve Madden, and red soled Laboutins, swaying to the sounds of Rihanna ring tones on Blackberries and I-phones.

I saw women sporting dreadlocks tinted in browns, shades of blond and gold. I saw women with straight and curly and flipped up weaves. I saw women in twist braids, short hair and long hair. I saw skinny women, fat women, dark skinned as well as light skinned women. I saw them all buzzing around at Nando’s and Chicken Inn and chatting and laughing and bearing pearly white teeth through painted lips- red lips, purple lips, pink lips, orange and brown lips. I saw them all. In their skinny jeans and jeggings and thick belts and bright colored cropped tops. I saw them all. With their men. Tall men skinny men, pot bellied men, short men, gray heads and stud muffins. Men. All of them with one thing in common: fat pockets too small to contain their bulging wallets. I saw them leaning over, all sexy and coy, laughing all languid and suggestive, leaning closer to their men, other women’s men, men old enough to be their grand fathers. I saw them, the “small houses”, the mistresses and minor wives wielding major power and spending major money. I saw it all.

I witnessed the church going mothers and fathers in their “kuwadzana” uniforms. I witnessed the feverish fervor of the young born -twice Christians, Bible in hand, the weapon against powers and principalities and the key to plenty money. I even had the fortune of being handed a flier to a revival “Come and claim your miracle, mother. (Mother is the term in current use in Zimbabwe for women of my age…[sigh])”. The only miracle I was in need of at that moment was the miracle of a clean public restroom- but that, my friends, is a whole ‘nother blog post.

Where was I? Oh I am witnessing and seeing Zimbabwe.

“The poor ye shall always have with you” [The Bible]. Indeed the poor were there, intermingling with the new rich, diluting the scents of Vera Wang, Cloe and good “Old Spice” with sharp, nostril stinging body odor. They were there, getting splashed in rain water from the puddles in the potholes as the big Hummers and the Mercedes drove through them. Holding their begging cups they ran across the streets, weaving in between the slow snake of cars, tapping on windows for alms. They were there, a part of the textured fabric of Zimbabwe, my Zimbabwe. My Zimbabwe with mountains of garbage scattered throughout her cities. My Zimbabwe with wood fires burning within the city as people cook their evening meals. Dazzling red sun set on the horizon. Zesa has taken the lights- power cuts, power sharing, power struggles. My Zimbabwe, enveloped in the dizzying drone of generators, distorting the night sounds and drowning out the crickets, the annoying high pitched mosquitoes and the croaking frogs.

As I settled down to sleep each night, my head would be full of the sights and sounds from the day and I would hold each person I had encountered, each scene in my mind and give it’s a story an ending.

My Zimbabwe may be broken, maimed and bleeding. But a clot has formed and the hemorrhaging will stop. The scab has formed and the wounds will heal. My Zimbabwe is ailing, but she is alive. My Zimbabwe has changed, but so have I. She will have scars, and so will I. My Zimbabwe will recover but it will take time, plenty of time, life times…

In memory of Ndapiwa, on Word AIDS Day, 2011

I wrote this poem when I was 18 years old. I had been to a hospital visit, to Mpilo hospital in Bulawayo. My passion for medicine propelled me to catch two minibuses from home to the hospital to potter around the wards and play doctor. I made myself useful by holding newborn babies while their mothers took a bath or ate. On this particular day I held Baby Ndapiwa, who was HIV positive while her mother went to wash and when she came back, Ndapiwa was gone. I remembered her today, and I searched my old notebooks for her poem and found it. Here it is:

Dark empty pools staring into space

Small pinched lips wince slightly in pain

Nostrils flare in an effort to draw air

She turns her head on a thin frail neck

Veins, a dense network visible

 On the side of her head

I spot a tiny pulse at her hot, hollow temple.

Tiny chest heaves and sags,

Ribs stand out like antlers on a stag

Her swollen belly is rounded and hard

Her twig legs lie limp across my arm

She cries a little, a hollow forlorn sound

No tears fall save those from mine eyes

She turns her head towards my face

And fixes me with an expressionless gaze.

Look at me, she screams.

Look at me and do not wince!

Look at me and love me!

Don’t turn your face away in disgust

 You have to look at me, you must!

I look upon her countenance

And cringe as fear seeps slowly through my bones

Tenacious twig fingers encircle one of mine

And I wish I could flea

A noose tightens painfully round my heart

As she flutters her eyelids. Now closed.

Barbara Mhangami (1990)

The next piece is an excerpt from a work in progress. It was inspired by the many many people, friends and family that I have personally held or walked next to as they journeyed on and out of this realm because of AIDS. We have a Heroes Acre at my grandfather's village in Chivi with over thirty family members who died from AIDS. Whenever I visit home, my grandfather takes me to throw a stone on the graves of members who have passed on in my absence. He cries and asks why he should have lived so long to bury his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, losing them to this hideous ailment called AIDS. Here is my story:

On World AIDS Day-2011

“Er, Sister Kuku, my daughter, a calamity has befallen this family… you see life"

"Is it one of my sisters or their children? Is it uncle Obert, Uncle Hazvi, Uncle Mhike.."

 I am rattling all my relatives’ names starting to feel panic rising in me when my father cuts short my litany.

“It’s your Aunt Melody. Er, you see, she..”

I have snatched myself off the mat and am outside running, tripping on a piece of wood, losing a sandal as I make my way towards the sleeping hut we shared. I hear my mother’s cry, "Kuku wait!” but I am at the door of our hut. My heart is beating so fast I feel as though it will explode out of my chest. It hurts to breathe.  I fiddle with the latch on the door, but it swings open with ease. It is dark in the room and I peer inside before stooping low and getting in.

My nostrils are assailed by the sickening stench of urine and feces. I try to breath but I gag and step backwards as though I have been physically shoved by an invisible hand. I steady myself against the mud wall and put my hand over my mouth, willing myself not to retch. I search the room frantically in the dimness and my eyes land on a small bundle of blankets in the far corner. I scour the room again, desperately trying to find my aunt. There is very little in here and I am compelled to take a second look at the small bundle on the floor. I look hard, then I see a tiny movement.” Vatete Melody!” I call out, teary now. I feel lost all of a sudden! Where is my aunt? Vatete Melody! My voice cracks and I exhale hard. Its sounds more like a groan.  My eyes have now adjusted to the light and I cannot remove them from the bundle with the tiny movements, up and down rapidly like something breathing shallow breaths, in–out-in-out. More movement this time and I hear a mewing sound, like a kitten. I see a pile of bones in a loose bag of brown skin trying to sit up. I move closer, propelled forward by some unseen force. I feel light and numb as I fix my eyes on the shrunken piece of humanity before me. ‘Kuku. She mews and sounds as though her voice is projecting into the back of her throat rather than out towards her mouth. I keep looking. She has no lips. Her teeth and red- raw gums are bare. Her nose is two holes in her head. That aristocratic bridge is gone. She has reddish fuzz on her head and her cheekbones jut out like rocky outcrops on a hillside, with deep hollows beneath them. I see a pulse jumping under the skin on her neck. There are two swollen lobes, ugly and obscene-looking, behind her ears, dwarfing them. She pants from her effort to sit up. I move closer and kneel down beside her. I feel a hand on my shoulder. It’s my mother who whispers that I should not touch her. I slap her hand away from me, feeling a violent, volcanic anger.

“If you touch me again..” I mutter through clenched teeth.

I am alone with my Aunt, I sit beside what is left of her, feeling ripe, hot tears flowing down my cheeks in a steady stream. I do not take my eyes of her for a second. She searches my face, her black fiery eyes sharp, alert and focused, their whites whiter than ever. She is out of breath and asks for water. I reach over to the green metal cup next to her and I put it to her lips. Her teeth make a clanging sound against the rim of the metal cup as she swallows gulps of water thirstily. I am astonished to hear water trickling and gurgling down her throat, into her stomach, through the rest of her digestive system and out with a squirt onto the make shift napkin between her emaciated legs, fashioned from pieces of an old bed sheet. I look at her in a white vest and a napkin. She looks like an old withered baby.

“She cannot keep anything in even for a few minutes, whispers my mother’s co-wife.” She is kneeling next to my aunt and I. My aunt winces in pain as she tries to lie down again, wiped out.

I stroke her head. It is damp and the fuzz feels like baby hair. I touch her face. It feels hard and cold. Like stone. I take her hand in mine, slowly, deliberately. I take each of her fingers one by one, gently feeling the joints. The tears keep flowing and the front of my habit is damp. My nose is running but I make no attempt to wipe it. How is it possible that a person could be eaten from the inside out, like a house infested with termites? Nobody knows they are there until the house collapses in a pile of dust. That is my aunt. She has been eaten, sucked dry until she has collapsed in a pile of bones. I hold on to her hand as I did when she came from her city jobs. I hold onto it the way I did when we took a bucket of warm water to the back of the compound at night, to wash and giggle under the stars. These hands scrubbed my back. These hands plaited my hair and clapped enthusiastic encouragement as I tried to dance. My aunt told me about periods and showed me how to keep myself clean. My aunt giggled with mirth as she teased me about my budding breasts. My aunt laughed at my derogatory descriptions and imitations of our family members. She taught me how to blow bubbles from Bazooka bubble gum. 

Now here she is. Hollow, with a faltering heart beat and gurgling breath. The death rattle.

She moves stronger this time and sits back up. “You must write about me. Write it all down.”

She heaves, “Tell them about me Kuku.” She heaves again.

My father says, that’s enough, she needs to rest, but she persists over his protests.

 “I am too much, too beautiful, too loud, too vibrant to be forgotten.” She heaves and coughs and falls back on her blankets, totally spent. I am still holding her hand. “Kuku, she says panting,

“Yes Vatete, I respond calmly,

“This is not God’s fault. Do you hear me?”

Yes vatete, I hear you.

“Good,” she sighs. “Tell them about me.”

My grandmother’s younger sister, my father’s and my aunt’s mainini, has been summoned to come and take care of my dying aunt. She comes into the room and firmly asks everyone to leave so she can wash vatete. I do not move, and she does not ask me to. Mbuya Anna washes my aunt, talking soothingly all the while. She sings a tune I do not know, and after she is done, she rubs her with sweet smelling Johnson’s baby lotion and sprays her body with impulse body spray-musk. “It’s my signature scent. It says Melody is on her way here, has been here or is around here, somewhere, somewhere.” I smile in spite of everything. That is what she would want.

My Aunt Melody is dead and we have buried her.

“Nematambuzdiko, our condolences” is all I hear at the bus stop as I wait to board the bus and head back to Bondolfi Mission.

I heard them whispering at the funeral, “How else would she have died, that one? It’s that terrible disease of whores. She was so thin you could count her ribs under her skin. What a shame on the family. And such a beautiful girl too.”

On the power of Images : to inform or to distort

                                              
The first time I saw this picture in my Face Book news feeds, I saw it as a thumbnail and as with most such images I scrolled on and did not pay it any more attention. The next day I saw it again and I curiously enlarged it, wondering what the little girl in the picture was doing kneeling on the ground. Well I got the shock of my life when I saw that what I thought was a little girl was a woman, bare breasted kneeling beside a tiny grave in which there lay a tiny human being. I started crying. I could not stem the flow of tears and I became really angry. I sobbed and continued to stare at the picture on my computer screen and yet I had a hard time nailing what I was so angry about. I am looking at this picture now, having decided to calmly describe why this is in such poor taste and in my mind a cruel and callous picture.

When I look at this picture and the manner in which I saw it, I realize the fact that poor Africans are so often stripped of their dignity. Here is a woman who has lost her child, probably to hunger or to some easily curable disease. She probably held her child to her dry breast and tried to give it sustenance but had nothing for it to nurse on. Then she decides to bury her child, grief stricken as I can only imagine, and there is a camera clocking away, documenting images of her sorrow, her pain, her vulnerability, her partial nakedness. I ask: as a mother myself, how would I feel if there was such a gross intrusion on my personal grief and loss? How would I react to a camera man, probably unknown to me, taking pictures while I stared at the corpse of my child, lying naked in a hole in the ground? What is the purpose of such a picture I ask?

This picture when I saw it came with no title, no name, and it was not attributed to any photographer or journalist. It has been circulating on Face Book and people have been pasting it on their walls. I have seen many varied reactions: some are mad and feel violated at being forced to see such a deeply saddening picture. Others are moved to tears and cry for Africa. But I ask again: what is the purpose of such a picture? Was this woman even asked if she wanted an image of her kneeling beside her baby’s grave circulated around the word for all to gawk at?  What does she stand to gain from all this “publicity”? Where in Africa was this picture taken and is it right to assume that it is in Africa? Mind you images like this are so associated with Africa and therein lies my problem with it: there is nothing on the picture that says where in Africa this is (That is if it is even in Africa, could be in Haiti or Grenada), and so this leaves room for assumptions that this is happening in the whole of Africa. After all Africa, for many in the West is a country. Because there is no name, no story attached to this picture, viewers are left to draw their own conclusions about what is going on, leaving room for more assumptions: that in Africa, women are left to bury their dead children alone in a hole in the ground and that African women, real African women, not the westernized kind, go around topless.

On another level my anger was an embarrassed sort of anger that we have leaders on the continent who shop at the most expensive stores the world over, who own homes and yachts and diamonds and run the country’s finances as though it was their own personal bank account, while what is in that image is going on. That health care systems and agricultural sectors are in bad shape, while people starve, and die of diseases that are considered eradicated in other parts of the world. That while  governments elsewhere have emergency plans and contingency plans to deal with drought and other natural disaster situations, governments in Africa have the hands stretched out to NGOs and WHO to come in and help.

The images of Africa continue to be images of the kind I have shown here and Africans as a whole are tired of seeing themselves represented in this fashion en masse. Yes the continent has its problems, yes there is disease famine and war, but these things abound in other places and yet we rarely see images so obscene (and jarring to the senses), of these places. Are the victims of Hurricane Katrina any more human than the Africans in refugee camps? Yet the images we saw during that natural disaster were not of dead people floating in the flood waters or half naked Americans sobbing heartbreakingly while clutching a dead child. It is not that these things did not happen, but there was a sense that some scenes were too sensitive to capture on camera. Why is the same respect for human dignity not afforded to Africans?

We have a responsibility to voice our concerns about such images and somehow vulnerable populations need to be protected against this kind of abuse. Yes, it is abuse to take a picture of someone who is mourning and who has not given her permission and then not to even bother to give her a name. She is just another faceless, nameless African in the throes of poverty and disease. It is not right to take advantage of people particularly when they are at their most vulnerable. It is low, empty of empathy and it is in poor taste.

What I really wished for more than anything when I saw this picture was to throw a shroud over the woman and her baby and to shield them from scrutiny and restore to them the dignity that poverty has robbed them of, so that they could say their goodbyes in peace. Surely every human being has that right?

Barbs

Only in America! Vietnam-Zimbabwe, Happy Thanksgiving

   

I had a fantastic encounter today! My manicurist whom I have known as Jimmy for a whole year became known to me today as Yung Wei from Vietnam. I had not seen him for some weeks and that is because I was too busy to get pampered in a spa. However, since the holidays are round the corner I decided to get spruced up in preparation for the festivities.

 Jimmy greeted me in his usual ‘Wassup Barb!’ as I sat in his wonderful massage chair. I pressed the on button on the arm rest so that the chair could start working its magic on my back. I responded to him and asked him how his trip to Vietnam was. Well if I had known that I was about to be transported to and given a deluxe tour of Vietnam, I would have come better prepared. As Jimmy worked on creating a set of bright pink nails with white tips on my fingers, I listened to the enchanting tale…

“My trip was great. It takes more than 22 hrs to get to Vietnam from here. I was happy to see my mum. She has been sick for some time now. Something in my heart told me it’s time to go. It’s been 15 years since I left. She was so happy she shouted “Yung Wei! You have finally come!”

I watched Jimmy transform into Yung Wei, as he described that first encounter with his mother after so many years. It was not so much the words he used but the manner in which his whole being was able to bring that experience to life for me. His face was rapt as he buffed and filed my nails with the precision of a pre programmed machine. His eyes filled up with tears which made them glisten like shiny black coals.

“I could not believe how old my mother has grown. There are wrinkles on her face and around her eyes. She has lost so much weight from the illness and her cheekbones jut out under her skin. She looks like a small girl, you know? I hugged her, but there was nothing to hug; just bones in a bag of skin. She was crying but no tears were falling. She is all dried up inside because of the illness, she cannot even make tears. I could feel she was so happy to see me but I could see that she felt bad that after all these years, I should find her in this sorry state.”

I felt my own tears well up in my eyes. I put my head back and blinked several times so they would not fall. What on earth did I have to cry about? Here I was getting my nails done and getting ready to party and this poor man has just returned from an emotionally harrowing trip home. I was silent as he placed the white tips and glued them onto my nail.

“I know my mother would have wanted to cook for me. When I was a small boy she cooked my favorite food every other day. It is called Hu tieu kho. Do you know it?”

 I shook my head.

“It is made up of noodles with different vegetables; mushrooms, bean sprouts, green onions, and carrots. You can add chicken too if you like. But when I was a small boy, we were too poor to afford meat. You can make it spicy by adding hot red peppers, you know. My village is in northern Vietnam, near the Ban Gioc Falls. Do you know it?”

 I shook my head again

“It’s the best place in the world. My mother is a great singer, you know. She is sings the Hat Van. This is music for the spirits. She is from the mountains. Mountain people are spirit people. They are very close to nature and they follow what the spirits tell them. I forgot all these things when I came to America. I forgot my ancestors. Vietnamese government stopped all forms of worship in my country. Did you know that? ”

I shook my head yet again. I had many questions for Jimmy. I was curious as to why he left Vietnam and what the country was like given the fact that it had been colonized by the French in the 19^th century. I wanted to find out how Vietnamese people felt about the war particularly because he was from the north, which had been on one side against the south, which was backed by the United States. However, I could see that Yung Wei needed to unburden, to tell his story his way. I did not interrupt.

As listened intently and imagined a hot spicy chicken and vegetable dish eaten under the warm sun listening to the sound of a waterfall. I imagined Vietnamese men and women in nearby rice paddies, planting and weeding their crops, all the while singing haunting melodies to their ancestors. The scene before me was idyllic and calm, and I imagined a little bare chested boy running up a lush green mountain slope and jumping into the frothy waters at the bottom of the water fall. I imagined the Victoria Falls, my best place in the world, and was overwhelmed by sadness. I knew why I was crying. Selfishly, Yung Wei’s story had become my own. The yearning and intense homesickness that he was exuding became my own nostalgia for a home that once was. My home country had changed over the years and so had I. I wondered whether realistically I could continue to call it home. I wondered whether both home country and I could accommodate the changes that time and life had wrought on us and whether we could somehow find a modus Vivendi, a compromise, much like in a marriage where both people learn to live with and accept the quirks and foibles inherent in the other. He had one sick family member back in Vietnam while I had many close family members who were ill.

Yung Wei’s voice broke into my thoughts.

“My mother has never seen my children, or my wife. It’s too expensive for all of us to go.”

Yung Wei has three children. His youngest is the same age as my twin daughters, who are 4 years old. He has a lovely picture of them in Halloween costumes on his work table. He glances over to his wife, who is working diligently on another customer’s hands at a table across the room and he smiles:  “We will soon catch up with you. There is number 4 on the way.”

I smile through my tears, which despite my best efforts have started to fall in rivulets down my cheeks, smudging my eyeliner and leaving trails that resemble dry riverbeds in my foundation. These are tears of joy, because despite the cloud of cold melancholy enveloping Yung Wei and me, his news of a new life in the making infuses the grayness with a soft, warm yellow light.

“America is the country of forgetting and remembering, he says with a sad distant smile.

“You can be so happy that you forget the hard times, the old country, the hunger and the poverty. But America can make you think about that country you left behind, the people you miss, the smells and the sounds. Do you know that?”

 I nod my head. “Yes Yung Wei, I know that. America is the place of forgetting and remembering”

He has done a perfect job with my nails and as I get up to leave, he comes round the table, gives me a big awkward hug, laughs heartily and says, “Yeah Barb, of course you know that! You’re from Nigeria, right? You and me are the same right? Old country to New country!”

I laugh with Yung Wei. “Old country to New country, Yung Wei and it is Zimbabwe I come from!”

“Oh!  Jimbabwe? Ok! Still, same thing! Jimbabwe- Vietnam, still Old country!”

At this both of us are guffawing and bumping each other like old friends sharing a private joke, as we make our way to the cashier.

“Happy thanks giving Yung Wei! Have a great time with your family.”

He looks into my eyes and says “Happy Thanks giving Barb! Thanks for listening. Oh, by the way, next time, use my New country name, Jimmy. Otherwise my customers will get confused. Old country name makes me remember too much!”

I blow a kiss towards Jimmy’s wife and their ‘bun in the oven’ and take my leave. As I walk to my car with the icy cold wind shredding my face, I think to myself: “This Thanks giving, I will take time to remember and time to forget and as I do this, I will have gratitude in my heart and a glass of Merlot in my hand. HAPPY THANKS GIVING to those in the Old country and those in the New, and to all those who straddle both Old and New!

Barbs

 

On the state sanctioned killing of two men, one white one black on the same day in America the land of justice and freedom

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Troy Davis was killed by lethal injection yesterday in Georgia for possibly having been the murderer of a white police officer in 1989. Yesterday, white supremacist gang member Lawrence Russel Brewer was also killed by lethal injection in Texas for tying up James Bryd Jr., a black man, to the back of his pick- up truck and pulling him along a rough asphalt dirt road until he resembled road kill. Incidentally the officer who found his tattered remains thought he was road kill until he realized he was a decapitated, mashed up, human being.

The differences between the two cases are glaring: In the case of Troy Davis, he has over the last twenty years pleaded his innocence and asked that a fresh investigation be launched. In the absence of the murder weapon (a gun), no finger prints and no DNA evidence, the case rested purely on the testimony of eye witnesses, 7 of whom have recanted all or part of their story.

In the case of Brewer, he and the other men involved in the case were picked up and the blood of Byrd were found on all of them. He has also never ever denied that he killed Byrd.

Byrd had no final words to say to anyone, while Troy Davis told the family of the slain officer that he was sorry for their loss but he had not killed officer McPhail. He also asked his family to keep searching for the truth and he forgave those who were about to kill him and asked God to forgive them too.

I am tempted to dwell on what I perceive to be a gross miscarriage of justice in the Troy Davis case, but I think we all know this and those who have followed this case over years, as I have will no doubt be feeling hurt, angry and bitter, as I am. However I think there is a bigger issue here, which is that of state sanctioned killings. I refuse to use the term capital punishment because to my simple mind, what is the punishment in terminating a person’s life? What punishment does a dead person feel? Unless of course you are a believer in the eternal inferno called hell and you believe that sending someone to an eternity of being fried or roasted earlier than his maker planned, is the ultimate punishment, I really don’t see how killing a person is punishment for him. Punishment is for his family members maybe, who despite everything may still love and value the person. Or maybe you are also a believer in the biblical an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth? Or Live by the sword, die by the sword?

Whatever the case killing a person because he killed another will not bring the dead person back and while some say justice is served, for whom is justice served when the injured party is dead? No one has any way of consulting the dead guy if he wants his murderer killed so what justice are we talking about? Worse is the case where there is a possibility that the man who is killed is the wrong man. Does it matter at all that Troy Davis may have been innocent or is it a case of witnesses saying they saw a thin black man kill the officer and so it doesn’t matter which black man goes down as long as one goes? I have often heard people say all black people look alike to white people and all white people look alike to Asian people. So is it possible that there was a case of mistaken identity? That this was the wrong black man and he has become the fall guy?

My idea of punishment is keeping the person alive to serve out a jail term even if it is life in prison. Confinement is punishment, lockdown is punishment. Waking up every day to the knowledge that you are a murderer, deplorable and not fit to walk the earth freely, is punishment. Having nightmares about the person you killed is punishment. State sanctioned killing is not punishment, it is gratuitous violence, open to abuse by flawed officials and flawed institutions of justice. I am sickened by the deaths of Troy Davis and Brewer, but for different reasons:

 I wish Troy Davis had lived, and that a proper investigation would have been carried out to determine whether he was guilty. Instead he was presumed guilty, convicted based on flimsy testimony, and was saddled with the burden of proving that he was innocent. Now he is gone.

I wish Brewer had lived, so that his hideous crime would be with him every single day he breathed, as he marched his hours away in a prison yard. Now he is gone.

And both their deaths did not bring the victims back to life. So where is the justice I ask?

Remembering September 11, 2001

I had just finished changing four month old Chichi’s diaper and was nuzzling her and enjoying her giggles and chubby legs kicking at my face, when I heard the CNN commentator announcing that a plane had just flown into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. Cyril had turned on the television to listen to the headlines before taking off to the hospital. It was a beautiful September morning with clear blue skies. I picked up Chichi off the floor and sat on the couch next to Cyril and began nursing her, eyes glued to the screen. Then I watched, totally numb and devoid of feeling as another plane flew straight towards the second tower, next to the already smoldering one. I heard the commentator, like a soccer commentator excitedly announcing that a player was about to score a goal, yelling that a second plane was headed to the world trade center. It struck. Chichi tugged at my breast, agitating for the attention she was so accustomed to getting during her feeds. Her first teeth were out and she nipped at me a technique she knew was sure to elicit a yelp. I sat there staring at the TV screen. Mute.  In the background of my numb mind, I could hear the commentator saying something about it not being an accident but a terrorist attack. I continued watching as fragments of humanity hurled themselves out of windows and went flying through the sky, gravity drawing them rapidly towards the earth. It was like watching a horror movie, only with the knowledge that none of what was unfolding on the screen was make- believe.

Today marks the day of that ugly event, an even that was condemned the whole world over. An event which changed America and Americans in a way they could never have imagined. As I reflect on the events of that day, I am listening to the role call of all those who perished on that day. There are many. I can hear tearful commemorations from family members of those who were on the planes, the fire fighters and the paramedics, the pedestrians going about their daily business. I hear the loss in their voices still fresh as though this event occurred yesterday. It occurs to me as I sit here, that while America remembers its collective losses as a result of that event, there are those who remember personal losses and harbor private grief. While collectively America remembers the sacrifices that have since been made in order to secure the homeland, there are those who reflect on the loss of sons and daughters of mothers and fathers of brothers and sisters in wars fought on foreign soil. While there are those, who on this day are criticizing American foreign policy and are talking about “how the chickens came home to roost” there are those who are puzzled by the fact that there are people so hateful that they would destroy innocent lives in order to make a point, which to many is still very unclear. It occurs to me too, that while this attack was on America, it took with it people from all over  the world and today a family is without a member, somewhere in the world, thanks to that attack on 9/11. Whether it be loss of life due to the subsequent wars that have been and are being waged, or due to the first terrorist attack, human life continues to be wasted. In Afghanistan and Iraq, innocent civilians are casualties of air strikes and suicide bombings. It makes me think about the fact that grief knows no geographical boundaries. Grief has no color. Loss knows no religious affiliation or ideology. Grief comes to all humans and today I remember with all those who grieve their loss, in America and abroad. I remember too all those who continue to suffer under tyranny and reflect on the waste of human life the whole world over, due to unnecessary, man made wars, famine, environmental degradation and political instability and the lunacy of fanaticism.

I remember too, that no one is invulnerable to death and to the vagaries of living on this planet, and hope that with remembering comes some action, to stop the killing, the bombings and carnage that has made a graveyard out of this earth. I hope that 9/11 will not be just another day to indulge in melancholy and sadness, but a day on which individually we purpose to do whatever we can to secure a better world for those coming long after we are gone. Whether our purpose is translated into action is a topic for another blog, but for today, let us all reflect with purpose as we remember all those who fell on 9/11 and those who have fallen since.

On Diseases and Disparities and my Moment of Utter Despair

I recently attended a public health residency/conference in the laid back friendly city of Minneapolis. It was a vibrant affair, full of sharp minded types with big hearts oriented towards social change. Social change, at its most basic definition in public health, is the transformation of communities (and therefore societies), through the engagement in scholarly research that is applicable in the form of effective policy and prevention programs. So here we were, all bright eyed bushy tailed idealists in a lot of ways, sitting through session after session of stimulating discourse. 

One would think that since public health is one of my many passions, I would be happy, excited and energized! Yet as I went from session to session sipping on my skim milk caramel latte from Starbucks, I felt like a balloon with a pin hole leak, and air seeping out imperceptibly but feeling heavier and heavier. Now I will have you know that my caramel latte alone is usually enough to put a spring in my step no matter how the world may conspire to ‘bring me down’. But it was just not having the usual effect on me. 

My AHA! moment collided head on with a feeling so overwhelmingly bleak I can only describe it as a moment of utter despair. It suddenly dawned on me that my source of wistful sadness was due to the fact that while we were dissecting the disparities of health in America, looking at the at HIV/AIDS, diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease and obesity on in the African American community, the Hispanic community and the native American community, my own community in Zimbabwe did not even have basic public health infrastructure. In this country, the USA, a sophisticated public health infrastructure is in place: there is infectious disease surveillance, chronic, occupational, genetic and environmental epidemiology. In my own community back home these departments may exist in name only, but they are not fully functional   units that take care of these various aspects of population health both rural and urban. For example, one of my papers was looking at how DDT may cause breast cancer, congenital abnormalities in fetuses and sterility in both men and women after chronic long term exposure to high doses in the USA. I immediately thought of the thousands of men women and children who are exposed to high levels of DDT on the African continent due to indoor residual spraying for malaria. A substance that was banned here in 1970 is in use in Africa and while our beloved governments and the esteemed ministers of health all wonder the globe attending meeting after meeting. I wonder how many of them are concerned about the health impact of DDT, asbestos, which causes lung cancer and lead paint, which causes neurological deficits? Granted DDT has saved many lives but I wonder how many more will be adversely affected in the future.

As we discussed the fine tuning of surveillance systems so that there become more efficient at picking up disease outbreaks in order to implement containment measures before they reach epidemic proportions, I kept wondering about why we, in Zimbabwe couldn’t set up a surveillance system that involves a network of cell phones which are used by rural hospital staff to text a central district location all the new cases of say, cholera, so that if there was any sign of an outbreak then containment and treatment could take place before hundreds of people died. Then I remembered that in order to do that you would need money, a health ministry that cared and of course a doctor at every rural hospital or clinic. That is when the despair really set in. Along with it was the frustration of having acquired so much knowledge over the years, hopeful that one day I would go back to Zimbabwe and ‘give back’, I am finding myself less and less hopeful as I grow older. My desire has always been to serve my country and put my knowledge to use for the benefit of those who need it most. Now I am looking forward to a time when my girls are older and I can get a job that tackles health disparities in America….while my own Zimbabwe continues to tackle the issue of not enough doctors, doctors who charge an arm and a leg, making obscene profits on the backs of the poor, disease outbreaks that kill hundreds in a week due to lack of medication and IV fluids, oh, and chemicals that will give children cancer and cause men and women to become sterile…

It gets worse: On the evening following my darkest hour I felt compelled to switch my caramel latte for something more analgesic. I sat over dinner alone in a quiet corner of the restaurant with a bottle of Merlot, the contents of which were dwindling alarmingly fast. I was greeted out of my maudlin reverie by a brother from Somalia, who was also at the conference. He happily pulled up a chair and I felt my heart sinking even further into a drunken darkness. I really wanted to be alone, but my ever smiling African hospitality would never have allowed me to follow my inclination to ask him to kindly leave me alone. Besides he had broad shoulders and I figured he was strong enough for me to unburden my sorrows over my homeland. After my long slurred monologue, the brother decided I was too deep for his festive mood and he got up. His parting words to me were:

 “I don’t know why you are here crying over Zimbabwe healthcare. Your country is great place and I wouldn’t mind living there. If you cry over Zimbabwe with government, what must I do about Somalia with no government and millions of starving beoble?”

On that note he left me, feeling scolded, and I signaled to the waiter for my bill and another bottle of Merlot. To go.