Her Zimbabwe

“Kunjani okungamaSwina SisB.” 

“ Vana vemuroora wangu muZvangendaba wekuBhuruwayo.”

As a little girl I often heard statements like these and others, used with such fervour and frequency by many around me; so much so that for a long time, I believed them to be normal references to either Ndebele or Shona people. This was in the 1980s, a turbulent time in the history of tribal relations in Zimbabwe, and I remember the words and images so vividly because they were more pronounced then, than at any other time in my life. 

Life in the eighties was great, if not even fabulous; some of my best memories were made during this decade. The naughty nineties just never seemed to surpass, no no, couldn’t hold a candle to their predecessor. Maybe it’s the fact I was ‘born free’ after Independence was declared in 1980, or that, Michael Jackson was at his best. Maybe the world was more innocent than it is today, I don’t know, but my peers would undoubtedly agree on the fabulousness of the 1980s. 

At the time, my hometown of Bulawayo was a bustling industrial town and in my opinion there seemed to be no better place to live. In my then neighbourhood of Northend, my friends and neighbours were a mix of all tribes and races. It was perfection.