By Getrude Matshe Two years later my parents eventually had enough money to send for us, and my grandmother sadly prepared her two little grandchildren for the great trip across the seas. When they told her the plane would be in the air for 11 hours she almost refused to let us go and they say she was so heartbroken about our leaving, she was depressed for months after we had gone. When we finally got to London, I was so disappointed because it was nothing like home. There were grey skies and cold winter days and the sun just didnt shine. When we arrived I didnt recognise my mother. She says my sister knew exactly who she was and cried when she first saw her, but I kept my distance and called her Sisi; which means sister. What is your name, Sisi? I would ask. I am your mother, Getty, my mother would explain. She says I looked at her in disbelief and answered, My mother has gone to the land across the seas. I am your mother, she would insist. Is that bald man your husband? I would ask about my father. He is your father, child. But Grandma tells me my father has also gone to the land across the seas, I would reply. So, what is his name? He is Father to you, my mother would say, exasperated, but the questions just didnt stop. Hes very quiet, isnt he? I would say, which my mother thought was a clever observation, for my father is indeed a very quiet man. Whose house is this? This is our house, your new home, my mother would explain patiently. When is my grandmother coming to fetch us? I would ask, looking at the door. Grandmother is not coming. Getty, come and sit here next to me. But I refused, and only started to trust these two strangers who were claiming to be my parents when my sister Patricia went close to them. This upset and depressed my mother. It took weeks for me to trust her and realise that she was indeed my long lost mother. One year is a long time in a small childs life. Up to that point my grandmother was my mother and, although she reminded me every day that I would one day reunite with my real mother, who had gone to the land across the seas, I didnt have a clear memory of who this real mother was. My daily ritual for the next six months was to take some bread, wrap it up and put it in my bag and prepare to leave, ready to go back to my granny at Wedza. When I was asked what the parcel was for I would simply say This bread is for Ambuya, Grandmother. I know she will like it. Right now shes probably sitting underneath the peach tree waiting for us to come back. This was my grandmothers daily ritual. When she got home from the fields she would sit under the peach tree, exhausted from a day in the fields, and she would call out to me, Getty, ndiigire mvura yekunwa. Please bring me some water to drink. And I would run into the kitchen and fetch her a gourd filled with water. The bread was for Ambuya because we didnt have bread every day in the rural areas. If we were lucky we would eat it once a year at Christmas or, during the year, if a kind relative came to visit they would bring us a loaf of bread from the city and that was a real treat. Now in this cold, miserable place, although there was no sunshine, Christmas was celebrated every day because we ate bread every day. Thats how I perceived London. We lived in Clapham Common and there were very few black people in our neighbourhood. I couldnt speak a word of English when we arrived in London, only Shona, and I was petrified of white people. Their pale skin and strangely coloured eyes scared me. In my world everyone was black, and my mother tells me that whenever people saw us walking in the street, they would come and say hello and comment on how sweet we were and pat my hair and make me cry. It took me a long time to get used to this new life. But life was good. They say I soon forgot about Africa and my grandmother, the sunshine, the peach and the mango trees, the watermelons and the storytelling in the late afternoon sun. One thing I did hold on to, however, was my doll. Although my parents bought me beautiful white porcelain dolls with long, flowing blond hair I still held on to Chipo, a doll my grandmother had fashioned out of a corncob and corn leaves. Chipo means gift. My grandmother named her, and Chipo never left my side. She slept with me, ate with me, talked Shona with and to me and she reminded me of Africa. Chipo didnt have hair; come to think of it Chipo didnt even have a face. She had no limbs, either, but although she was faceless, she could speak. Chipo and I would talk for hours. As the months rolled by I started to forget how to speak Shona. So, too, Chipo found it harder to understand my new found language of English. And because most of my friends had blond hair and blue eyes and all my white dolls could speak English, Chipo was slowly forgotten and was pushed to the back of a closet. I had lost my best friend and my only link to my life in Africa. I started going to day care. I was 3 years old and it was difficult for my parents to separate my sister and me. In their absence we had grown very close and Patricia, although only two years older than me, had taken on the responsibility of being my protector. She still keeps that role today. When I look at the photographs of us at that time we would be standing side by side but she would always stand one step ahead of me, as if sheltering me from harm, and she always held my hand. We were severely malnourished when we got to London, because our daily nutritional intake had consisted mostly of starch. Sadza was our staple diet. This is a mixture of cornflour and water cooked to the consistency of mashed potatoes. Malnutrition was common amongst children our age. Because of the lack of electricity in the village, meat was rarely eaten and we had no way of refrigerating perishables. If on a special occasion a cow was slaughtered the meat would be cut into strips, salted and dried in the sun. This would preserve the meat and it meant we had meat for at least two to three months. It was not a common occurrence however. Cattle are wealth in Africa and are only slaughtered on very rare and special occasions, therefore we ate cornmeal with the cabbage or green vegetables grown around the well at the mission school. If any of the cattle or goats were feeding their young, some of the milk would be collected, stored in a metal bucket and covered with a lid. It fermented for a few days and when the milk had curdled into a sour yoghurt it would be eaten with the sadza (cornmeal). With the change of diet in London, it didnt take long for us to glow. The change in diet and nutrition was remarkable. It was a difficult time, however, for my parents who were both students struggling to study while at the same time looking after two small children on one scholarship. It meant they both had to look for work after college so they could pay the bills. They made quite a lot of friends during this time; some of them people from Rhodesia whom they knew before they left home. The lady who was kind enough to escort us from Salisbury to London was a friend of my mothers. Her husband, a lawyer, had gone to London a year before, and she was following with her two children to join him and hopefully to train as a nurse. When my parents had raised enough money for our tickets they asked her to bring us to them. It worked out cheaper and meant they had a bit of money to spare when we arrived. After three years of study we returned to Rhodesia, and going back home was interesting. I remember when we arrived back from London we drove to Wedza to see my grandparents, and my home village looked like something from another planet. I remember thinking, how could people live like this? There was no running water and if I needed the toilet I had to go to the bush and use those great big hairy leaves my grandmother thought were toilet paper to clean myself. I was soon reunited with all my cousins and friends, but now they all seemed so uncivilised and dirty. The children walked around with no shoes and their clothes looked worn out and tattered. And their hair was rough, coarse nappy hair; unkempt and unstrengthened, in contrast to my sisters and my shoulder-length, hot-combed, straightened hair. All our cousins envied us because we had lived overseas and spoke perfect English and that made us appear more intelligent. My uncle Christopher, my mothers only living brother, would take me to the mission school where he used to teach, and show me off to all his friends and the parish priest. I remember all the teachers crowding around me when I spoke to them in English. I remember, too, the look of pride in my uncles eyes when he saw their amazement and admiration as I answered with confidence all the questions the parish priest asked me. The teachers at the school crowded around me and asked the most obvious questions, like What is your name? My name is Getrude Bere, I answered confidently in perfect English. How old are you? someone else would ask. Im five years old, I would reply. Who is your grandmother? My grandmother is Getrude Bopoto. And so the questioning would continue. I was sure they knew the answers but the fascination was in hearing me speak English so fluently and without an African accent, for I could speak the Queens English. One day one of the teachers said, Boy, if you closed your eyes you would think she was a white kid, and everybody laughed. And so I became the white kid trapped in a black skin. When I look back now, I must have seemed like an alien returned to this small, quaint African village. The way I speak and articulate the English language has truly opened a lot of doors for me. People perceive you differently if you can speak their language fluently. I have seldom gone into a job interview and not got the job. Being back in Wedza was good but it was short lived. My sister was starting school that year and we would soon be going back to Salisbury. But while we were there we soon loosened up and stopped dressing up and wearing shoes every day, and before long the hot sand between my toes felt so good that I would run barefoot everywhere; in the fields or playing by the stream with our friends and cousins. We soon forgot to be self-conscious about our bodies and would play naked in the hot afternoon sun after we had finished our daily chores, and I remember some days going skinny-dipping by a pool in the woods. Excerpt from my book “Born on the Continent – Ubuntu”, buy a copy on my website http://www.bornonthecontinent.com, 100% profit goes to the Africa Alive Foundation for HIV and AIDS orphans in Zimbabwe Getrude Matshe Married and the mother of three children, Getrude is an African storyteller, a poet, an artist, a self published author, an entrepreneur and the founding director of three successful companies in New Zealand. Her extraordinary ability to manifest her dreams into reality can only be described as the way of the wizard Merlin; for she has the Midas touch and everything she touches turns to gold. Her presentations have drawn hundreds at recent engagements. She will share her amazing journey. 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