Went to the Great Zimbabwe yesterday, and it definitely was amazing. These incredibly built stone structures, ruined by colonialists eager to show the world that Africans weren’t capable of anything.
Yet what was most shocking was that, despite being home to all national symbols (the soapstone bird is, on the flag, the conical tower is replicated everywhere), Oscar and I were two of a handful of people visiting yesterday. We walked into the Great Enclosure, the museum, and several other ruins alone. We walked up and down trails to the hill complex without accompaniment. We were the only ones to see a family of baboons cross the path from forest to forest. Nobody comes to the Great Zimbabwe, relatively speaking. I realize it was a weekday, but close to a holiday, school’s out, etc. and there’s almost nobody around. Why? Money. Everyone says they’d love to go, and maybe they were there once a long time ago, but they don’t because just to travel there – cheaply – cost Oscar and I about $45, money that most Zimbabweans can’t possibly afford to spend. And we’re relatively close!
Well, today I’m headed out to a nice mountainous area to spend the night and Christmas. On Sunday, I’ll probably go to Harare and stay Monday, leaving Tuesday for Tete, Wednesday for Malawi, Thursday for Nampula. Spend Friday in town, Saturday at Ilha de Moçambique, Sunday to Gurue, Monday to Beira … busy!
It’s Christmas Eve. 9pm. Firecrackers are going off outside a silent house. Thinking of Christmas Eve gets me thinking about when I was a little kid, staying up late because I couldn’t get to sleep, opening the present my parents left for me in order to satiate my desire for new stuff. But the feeling of being together and enjoying a day where all that is done is cooking, eating and sitting around – comfortably – in stark contrast with the last three I’ve had. All by phone, counting this one. Mozambique, Portugal, now Zimbabwe. I hope the next one brings me back here. It’s definitely the loneliest time to be away from family.
But I wanted this adventure for every part of me. It’s something I needed to do. To prove to myself that I could, and to really try and get an idea of what this “Africa” thing is. I’m not about to say that I know it – I only have an idea of one part of Africa, but I feel like that idea is a well-formed one. And the more that I experience different cultures the more I realize my own. That my own is changing all the time as I see bits and pieces of other lives that I like. And so my culture is unique, and it’s not here and it’s not there. So what am I going to do with this? Where do I go from here?
Everyone says that something gives – you go one way or the other. Well, I will never be “American” (in the sense of being “African”), as if I ever were. I will not be labeled. I will be me, whatever that is. I’ve been writing notes to myself lately, to remind myself of what I might like to do when I get home: Social studies teacher, actor, social worker, math teacher, landscaper … the list goes on. But what irks me inside is that none of it seems quite right. I’m realizing that it matters less what you do than how you do it – meaning, life.
I read these stories of people who had convictions when they were young, then got “caught up” in jobs and families and the fire died out. They said they regretted their decisions, and that they wish they had retained some of their activism.
I fear.
I fear becoming one of those people who’s wishing they did when they didn’t. Regret, above everything else, is my greatest fear. I tremble at the thought of it. Because I know I have one chance to see the mountain landscape, to take that train ride, to tell someone I love them. And so it’s fear of regret that keeps me going. And this fear is around every corner when I think about the next step. Every possible path holds regret come success or come failure. And so it halts me, it makes me think, “There must be something perfect.”
Pragmatically, I know there isn’t. But that doesn’t stop me from wishing that when I open up the want ads one day, everything will come together. I wish.
Yet there is … [got interrupted!]
Peace,
John
