1988

As I walked out of Harare's tiny airport, squinting into my first rays of African sunshine,
I had the sensation that I had come home, a sensation that has never left me.

Africa struck me with a light that is sharp and clear; fresh-smelling air; an unforgettably vast blue sky; and a rich red earth or a raw land.

I had signed a three year contract with the Zimbabwean Ministry of Education to teach English and here I was, a naïve 20-something, with no teaching qualification and no experience; just a degree in English Literature, huge amounts of optimism and the misplaced self-confidence of the very young. I stayed on five years.

Both of the schools I taught at for my first four years in Zimbabwe were Mission schools in the north-east of the country, surrounded by farmland, gum trees and improbably huge rocks which appear to teeter precariously on top of each other and are the most striking feature of the landscape in that part of Zimbabwe.

The roads were mainly dust, though some were tarred (after a fashion), but full of pot-holes in the rainy season; with scarce and unreliable transport. There was generally one bus a day, which may or may not arrive, may or may not be full when it arrived, and there was a high chance that it would break down before it reached its destination.

Getting from one place to another in Zimbabwe was an exercise in patience and ingenuity. If the bus failed to arrive, we simply piled into whatever transport was available - cars or open farm trucks and paid our bus fare to the driver regardless. We got our ride, the driver got petrol money and everyone was kept happy.

I taught several classes of around fifty students. They were energetic, enthusiastic, funny, affectionate, bright, mischievous and full of an irrepressible zest for life. And this despite sleeping in draughty dormitories, awaking at 5.00am to do 'duties' before school, studies every evening, and weekends occupied with yet more duties and more studies. School books and equipment were scarce and mostly had to be shared.

The overriding spirit in Zimbabwe is of these people. Wherever I went whether it was a dingy 'shebeen' or beer hall where I was often the only white person, or hitching a ride in an overcrowded farm truck, I found people to be consistently friendly and willing to help. I bore witness to the cliché of people who had so little, yet were so willing to share whatever they had with strangers.

At that time Zimbabwe was relatively newly independent following a hard-fought liberation struggle throughout the 1970's, including a bitter civil war between ZANU PF - led by Robert Mugabe - and ZAPU, led by Joshua Nkomo.

In 1988 there was still a strong sense of optimism and hope for the future. In Mashonaland, where I was living, Mugabe was revered as the father of the liberation struggle and people still had faith that he would set right the wrongs of colonialism. In Matabeleland however, it was a different story, and Mugabe never really managed to win over the loyalty or trust of the Ndebele people of that region.

'Reconciliation' was the word of the moment in the late 1980's; reconciliation with ZAPU (Joshua Nkomo was offered a place in the government in 1989), and reconciliation with the former colonialists - the white Zimbabweans. Those who stayed after independence were allowed to keep their wealth, their huge houses with swimming pools, their black servants who lived in huts at the end of the garden, and their vast acres of prime farmland that their ancestors had stolen from the original owners. In fact, for most white Zimbabweans, life changed very little after independence.

Zimbabwe was known at that time as 'the bread basket of Africa'. Whilst people were very poor (compared to Europe), there always seemed to be enough to eat, and the shelves in the stores were generally full.

It was a country rich in food from the land and, with scarcely any industrial base, poor in manufactured goods. Friends visiting Zimbabweans have been known to carry parts of cars in their hand luggage! But the scarcity of material goods regarded as necessities in the West, did not seem to matter. I rarely saw people begging in the streets and most rural people managed to grow enough food for their families, and usually some extra to sell.

Today

Once, Zimbabwe was never mentioned on the news. I'm willing to bet that many could not have told you where it was until stories of white farmers being evicted from their homes hit the news headlines in the West.

Land ownership is however a complicated business, especially in a country struggling with the legacy of colonialism and a war that was fought primarily to regain the land from the colonisers. Now the reports we see are of political violence, election rigging, intimidation of opposition party members, and partisan food distribution resulting in severe food shortages and starvation in some areas.

It is difficult to do justice to the complexity of the situation. However, the roots of Zimbabwe's economic problems sprouted long before Mugabe's policy of 'land seizures' began. In 1992 - my last year in Zimbabwe - the IMF put a stop to Mugabe's attempts to follow a 'socialist' agenda and imposed an 'Economic Structural Adjustment Programme' on the country (or as it was more popularly known, 'Extended Suffering for African People'). This was the start of economic change that resulted in the Zimbabwe dollar being devalued. That meant life became much harder for most Zimbabweans - changes that have been compounded by Mugabe's determination to hang onto political power at any cost, even his own people's.

The causes of current food shortages in many rural areas are hard to pinpoint, but land seizures are not entirely to blame. The rise of the opposition party, the MDC, in recent years has seen for the first time a threat to the political dominance of Mugabe's ZANU PF. In a bid to maintain support in rural areas, food aid distribution in areas with genuine food shortages has often been partisan and promised support by government on farming inputs has not been forthcoming, all of which has compounded and worsened the effect of drought in perennially dry areas.

Many of my ex-students and Zimbabwean friends are now in exile - in the USA, the UK or South Africa - and are part of the 'brain drain' that has decimated levels of skilled workers in the country (there are now so many exiled Zimbabweans in London it is known as 'Harare North').

The sense of disappointment in the betrayal by a man who led the country to freedom is palpable amongst Zimbabweans everywhere. For many this has turned into a righteous anger that has fuelled support for the MDC both inside and outside the country, providing them with the strength to fight on in the face of intimidation, violence, electoral vote-rigging and the apparent indifference of the international community to their plight.

Zimbabwe itself hasn't changed; the breathtaking landscape remains; the vast open skies; those granite rocks balanced as if put there by a mad conceptual artist. Victoria Falls; Great Zimbabwe; the game parks; the Eastern Highlands; the Zambezi river - these are unchanged in the face of the troubles and still accessible for travellers. But Zimbabwe is not just a country of beautiful landscapes; it's a country whose people are vibrant, resourceful, passionate and generous, who love their country and who simply want to live in security and be able to feed their children.

When I was living there, the journey to Victoria Falls was picturesque, if a little lengthy, involving an all night trip from Bulawayo by steam train. A brand new road has now been built from Bulawayo, clearly in optimistic anticipation of better times bringing more tourists. The road however now lies mainly deserted, with dozens of stone carvings - once a 'must-have' souvenir from Zimbabwe - gathering dust by the side of the road while the stone carvers wait hopefully for the tourist buses that never come.

Speaking to Tapiwa, a friend from my teaching days, I ask what to say to those unsure of whether to travel to Zimbabwe. Would they be welcomed in the same way that I was all those years ago?

"Zimbabweans will always welcome any stranger, black or white; it's in their 'hunhu' - their 'Africanness'. They are just tired, that's all."