Zimbabwe operates on the US dollar but without any coins — this morning, as I strolled across town in a Saturday tardiness, I struggled through my hangover to calculate how much a stop at the seven to eleven convenience store might cost me; here, when I want to buy a plastic bottle of water for 30 cents, I either pay one dollar and eat the 70 cents or add six little chocolates to my cart. Or a banana. The other day the nice cashier lady gave me four blue lollipops.

I ventured to a music festival this weekend in the capital city of Harare. Invited on some Sunday by an American woman I met this May, I found myself in the AirZimbabwe office just that following Wednesday. The perfect stranger is a remarkable human being and I’m Trying To more often say,

yes

and so I said,

yes!

and, well, I am sitting here, now days later still stirring over the shiny sparkliness of the eyes

all of them —

every singular eyeball —

that met mine.

was it just that they were all beautiful and blue?

were they a reflection of my own belongong?

was the sparkle a side-effect of both parties’ substance abuse?

I commented on and interrogated the shine, engaged in conversations about what on earth was I doing there and the usuals. In the same breath that each of these sparkling strangers told me they were madly in love with their country, they called it a complete and utter mess.

I am reminded of the rare smugness that snuck across my father’s face when Donald Trump publicly broadcast Zimbabwe as “one of those shit-hole countries.”

It’s there, in some lost and forgotten sound byte. It’s there.

Perhaps in jest, irony, resistance, or truth, Zimbabweans themselves call it a “shit hole” and when I ask why they never leave, they respond,

I did

or

I do

“but I always come back.

I can’t leave this place.”

Some version of that.

Each and every sparkling stranger.

There is a refreshing straightforwardness that accompanies time spent some place where problems are real — problems like hunger And poverty And potholes And wildlife encroachment And inadequate waste management.

To be clear — these problems exist where you are, too.

It is the confrontation

The front-and-centeredness and the not hiding and the not Trying To pretend or maybe trying but failing to pretend that everything works exactly as it’s meant to

It is the directness that is refreshing

Refreshing like a dip in the middle of the work day because,

Well,

The work is not going anywhere,

Is it?

The insensitivity, the privilege in my perspective is… troubling. To me as well.

To be born in Zimbabwe and hold a European passport is reported to me to be the ideal circumstance — you can leave just to return home — you can go when you need to be reminded of why you could never go for good.

People (white people) who have known the anonymity of a place like London cannot un-know its relief — these people need cities where it’s possible to hide from the village gossip. They need to be somewhere things move just a bit faster and almonds don’t cost so much. They need big space to make big mistakes.

To be clear, I am “these people”– my escape differs as my reference point does but surely, I am these people.

Inhale

Exhale

Stay

Be Patient and settle into this rhythm set for you by the sun and the moon and the high heat of noon.

This pace can cure almost any disease,

I’m sure of it.

And it’s also infuriating at times —

“These people are so inefficient” says many

My offering to you, German backpacker: it helps to surrender to the pace of the places you visit — you are, after all, a visitor. This is precisely the unique strength of an adventurer, I find: her adaptability. and the way she arrives to that exact point of surrender. And what it takes to get there. and the easy transmutation of her strength once she

Exhales

Finally

Until You Know Better

Dine at “The Butcher’s Daughter” and have a conversation with the actual butcher’s daughter

Go to Loretta’s coffee caravan and say thank you to Loretta herself

See what happens

Wait for the rains

Great Artists Steal

“‘…it always seems slow to the Portuguese merchants who come for the first time. If the boat they are in is not in front of the others, they worry and shout at the cafres. These calmly say, ‘Muzungo, go to sleep and rest’ and with such quiet answers they worry even more…’”