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Back on the farm
"Coly! Coly coly!" Used to ignoring men on the sidewalk in cities, I walk half a block before I realize that I am being called by name. "Nicole" is a strange name here, especially when coupled with "Li" and it usually becomes "nicoly" a la Nadja Rose, or simply Coly, a la the Senegalese soccer player.
 In this case, it is Frederick and Gift, childhood friends we met in a hotel bar. They are just leaving Copy World, where they had had laminated the letter from the government issuing them farm land. I shake their hands and congratulate them, laughing. There is death in this land reform, and there is justice -- which means there is also violence and death. I ask if they expect trouble when they take the land: Gift says, the farmer, he knows that he is leaving either on his feet or from the hospital.
They describe the life they will start on that land with their families, with roosters to eat the snakes so their children will be safe, maybe wearing big hats like American Cowboys. Gift's wife tells me that she will live in the city in any case, no farm life for her! We talk with her in Gift's office, from which he works as a private investigator.
Marta takes a photo of them, each with their laminated letters; then another photo of them holding their cards proclaiming them as War Veterans, having fought for freedom in 1980. Fredrick tells me that I am thinking too young, that now he knows that anger isn't the way to make justice. I say, without anger, you will get peace not justice -- he agrees: and tells me, again, I am young. Gift tells me that Fredrick will think differently when he stands on his own farm -- he tells me that Mugabe will be remembered in history as the Liberator of Africa. He takes my recorder and describes in detail how children will learn about Mugabe, just in case it doesn't get into the textbooks.
Nevet, the cab driver who took us to Granville, shook his head when I asked if he would get a farm. What is the point in applying, he said -- the election is over and they are running people off the farms they were given. The land is for the Ministers of government, not for me.
Why would I want a farm, Prosper exclaims, I want land here in Harare so I can have a business! Agriculture is not our future, it's computers! (didn't I know?) Maybe you can help us make a website so me and my cousins can sell our carvings to Americans? I promise.
- Nicole
July 2, 2002 • Nairobi, Kenya
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