I disembarked from an SAA flight and made my way along a rather hot skywalk to Harare’s beautiful terminal. Checking out was somewhat drawn out as officials battled to cope with passengers from three incoming international flights, all full. Air Zimbabwe was grounded. Not good! I was bemused by the fact that the majority of passengers were White. The lady at Customs interrogated me shortly and very politely; then sent me on my way, wishing me a pleasant stay.
The drive into Harare was bitter sweet. It was good to be home again. Familiar sights tugged at the heart. This was countermanded by the generally run down look of things; litter everywhere, and the road surfaces, ruptured and potholed, in seeming confirmation of the fractured bleeding heart of my nation, as internationally reported. Still it was so good to be home.
That feeling did not leave me for a second thereafter. I remained buoyant and happy despite the telephone poles leaning over, grubby buildings, street lights not working, unmarked road surfaces and robots that made negotiating intersections something of a lottery.
The radio cooed praise and salutation of our President and “Commander in Chief”. ZANU-PF and its ministers were referred to almost exclusively and portrayed as loving, sensitive, progressive and people centered ... leading a proud progressive nation, holding its own as “the breadbasket of Africa”, amongst other proud endeavours. In wonderful diction and tone, radio presenters made the case for the dominant faction of government in utterly convincing mode. Not once did I hear the Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, mentioned, only that the “opposition parties” were being obstructive and in terror of being defeated at long overdue elections, “the Government of National Unity having run its course”.
The print media banners told quite a different story. For instance there was an emblazoned caption that some ZANU-PF big shot was in serious trouble for having referred to our President as "old". There was a blazing headline that "ZANU_PF was practising withcraft". Never mind.
There were no shortages. Shop shelves were full, full of South African sourced goods and products. It was fun to transact in US dollars. So I quickly cached my SA Rand. It was fun to recive "small change" in the form of sweets or one of a range of novelty items. Keenly bemusing was the fact that we were using the currency of a country most roundly condemned by our loquacious “pan Africanists”, Jonathan Moyo et al. I saw cars with names I had not seen in South Africa. But the best cars seemed to be driven by Chinese. Perhaps it was just an illusion.
It was good to be home. I was happy, happy until 2:23 am one night, when I awoke in a fugue of deep sadness. It was a sadness that blanketed all my sensibilities. My heart melted in deep, deep sorrow. I felt so sad about all of it; Ian Smith; Rhodesia; the bush war; all the lives lost; so many
lives lost. I felt sad and bad about Robert Gabriel Mugabe; Josiah Tongogara; Joel Kufandada, Edson Svobgo, so many, many others; Gukurahundi; Operation Murambatsvina; Morgan Tsvangirai’s swollen face; my people burned alive and thrown off trains in South Africa. The list was endless!
A sea of faces played out in my mind’s eye; my Gogo, my uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters, cousins, teachers, friends, children and others with whom I had shared so much in a world, a different world, now gone, gone forever. I reflected on the great Julius Nyenyere telling our then Prime Minister, at Triangle, in the Lowveld in 1981, that "look after your roads ... and look after your Whites". At about the same time and place Samora Machel exhorted unity between ZANU and ZAPU in particulary. It was all gone!
It struck me forcefully that evil had hitched a ride on the ox wagons on their arrival so long ago. Evil had flourished. It had then re-flourished. We have all been affected. Evil has tainted some of us. Some have been touched, even destroyed. Others have been both tainted and touched.
How was my son doing in Brazil? How was my daughter doing in Canada? How was the rest of my family doing in the UK and Australia? What did Thabo Mbeki mean in his glorified speech “I am an Africa” when so many Zimbabweans were now flung so far and wide, denied their birthright; scrounging for acceptance and fighting to maintain a sense of self dignity? Thousands of children were being born abroad, denied their birthright. They would grow up and want to know who they were, where they came from and why ... why ... why ... why?
It was all a heart wrench; like my heart was pumping shards of broken glass.
I tried to work out what it was that had triggered this attack of extreme sadness and depression. Perhaps it was having learnt for the first time how members of my own community had also had their farms grabbed. The international media has always only referred to “White farm invasions”. My 
people are simply an inconvenient truth that needed no acknowledgment. It was said that Patrick Williams, a wonderful gentle spirited man had died of heartbreak, after being forcibly removed from the family farm that he had bought and heroically struggled all his life to develop.
It was no consolation to know that Solomon Mujuru, and a ZANU-PF chief, had just been reputedly horrifically murdered on a farm cruelly seized from a White couple who had also spent a lifetime turning bush into a proud oasis.
I just felt so sad and bad for his wife Joyce who I had first seen at independence, as Teurai Ropa (spill blood) a truly proud soldier and liberator.
As my eyes tried to pierce the darkness I started to imagine that I could see something or someone. I did not. However, in my mind’s eye I started to see, started to recreate that famous vision of a man that walked this earth some 2011 years ago, arms slightly outstretched, palms open, a fountain of hope.
I also started to see faces; the faces of everyone I had met since landing at Harare International Airport; the immigration and customs officials, the street children who spoke impeccable English, waiters in restaurants, shop assistants, street vendors, petrol jockeys, government and bank officials, care givers to my 94 year old mum, my family and friends.
There was something different about all this faces; different from anything I had seen in any of the many countries I have visited around the globe. I wondered what it was. Then I remembered what I had been told by everyone about a period now being referred to by all as “those crazy times”, when Zimbabwe immortalized itself in history with its trillion dollar bank notes.
In an incrdedible saga of human survival people had been brought together across the social, racial, ethnic spectrum and survived the unsurvivable by simply helping each other in countless ways, be it about fuel, bread, oil or other needy commodity. Ordinary human beings had made their lives extraordinary right in the lair of the beast and refused to be eaten by the crocodile.
It was then that it struck me as to why I had felt so happy and buoyant, despite the structural and infrastructural degradation that has inflicted a once beautiful country. My people exude a most precious commodity, first given to the World by the Man of Jerusalem. Just as He was indeed the King of Kings when He rode on a lowly donkey into Jerusalem all the years ago, my people are the kings and queens of the human spirit, as poor and deprived as they might be.
The blighting suffering that had been inflicted on them brought out love, love for each other, as being the same people, whatever the difference. Our sprit has been tested in the extreme, and in every way, often diabolically. That spirit remains unbowed, true and as strong as ever. The love for each other, spawned by terrible suffering, has given life to another most precious commodity.
My heart sings a quiet song of pride, for my country and its people. We have the precious commodity of Hope!
There is also courage. Both hope and courage were more than epitomized by Ruth and Tony Armando who provided me with such a happy stay in the land of my birth.
