I went for a run this
morning like I usually do when we don’t have training. It was grey and overcast
and a nice temperature for a jog. I never meet any other joggers and I usually
feel a little foolish passing hundreds of people walking to work while I bounce
along with my wrap-around ear-buds hooked up to my ipod. Sure, it’s only a 1gig
shuffle and it’s about 4 years old, but still. I always greet the people I pass
with either “good morning” or “livugile” and most are incredibly friendly,
breaking into huge smiles. That’s just how Zimbabweans are.
As I turned onto the home stretch this morning, running
down a road bordered by abandoned, trash-covered fields next to the smelly
river that surrounds the city, I passed an older mother with two children tending
a small patch of corn. Exams ended last week and school is out for the
holidays, so I was happy to know that these two kids are usually at school at
8am on a Friday. But today they were helping their mother with her urban
farming. Many families in Bulawayo
engage in urban farming, raising crops such as rape and maize on small patches
of soil surrounded by crumbling flats and trash-filled alleys. Most patches of
arable land in the city are taken up by small gardens and people often carry
water long distances to keep their crops alive.
I greeted the mother as I jogged past the farming family,
one of many moving methodically through patches of red soil between the road
and the river, hoeing and weeding. Two hundred yards down the road I slid open
the heavy black car gate to our yard that squeals like a banshee and really
needs to be oiled, and went in to retrieve my camera. Jogging back up the road,
camera in hand, I felt foolish again. I wasn’t even sure why I’d brought my
camera. My object was not to get a picture for my own use, but to possibly make
a copy and give it to the mother and her family if they were neighbors. I’ve
seen urban farming going on since we arrived 5 months ago and most of all I
just wanted to talk to them and gain some insight into their daily life. Yet I
didn’t want to seem like an annoying kiwha or a tourist. I guess it helped that
when the mother asked where I stay I was able to point up the road and show her
our house, one of the more modest in her very own neighborhood.
I greeted the mother first and all three stopped working
and looked up. Their field wasn’t really a field – the tilled rectangle of land
bordered by the burned remnants of other families’ trash piles measured no more
than 10 x 20 meters, and I noticed that half of it was filled with weeds. The
mother was heavy set and wore the traditional chitenge skirt and a head
wrap. She was very sturdily built, and it was clear that her arms and hands had
seen many seasons of planting. After an exchange of ‘good mornings’ she introduced
herself as Mrs. Marube. I asked her what she was growing (even though I
suspected corn), and she cried “maize!” to which I responded, somewhat
stupidly, “well, it’s a very nice crop.” At this she snorted, “It could be, but
there is no rain,” and pointed to the highest of her corn plants, explaining that
all the plants would be this height if the rains had come on schedule. It is
now mid-December and we’ve had almost no rain in Bulawayo. The rainy season is supposed to
start in October. The lack of rain has been wreaking havoc throughout the
country because farmers are afraid to plant too early for fear of drought and
lost crops. In the case of Mrs. Marube’s corn, she’d lost more than half to the
lack of rain – the section that appeared full of weeds was actually the other
half of her field where the corn seedlings had failed to sprout.
I gestured toward the larger field behind us, bordering
the river that doubles as a sewer, and asked why it was not planted. “He just
planted yesterday,” she explained. “He waited because of the rain, but finally
he could not wait any longer. The seasons, they are changing. We should have
rain in October but still we have none.” She shook her head and asked where I
stay. Turns out she stays just up the road so we’re neighbors, and the family
grows the corn to supplement their income. I didn’t ask further but I assume
they sell it to the vendors who then grill it on the side of the road and sell
an ear for 6 rand (75 cents). The kids had crept closer as we talked, and I gave
each of them a high five and asked how they were. They responded shyly and
smiled. Kids in Zimbabwe
are incredibly well-behaved and very reserved. Mrs. Marube started to resume
hoeing the ground in front of her, and sensing that there was work to be done,
I thanked her and asked her if I could take a picture. She asked what I wanted
it for and when I told her I would make a copy and bring it to her, she said,
“but I am so dirty!” Indeed, the front of her white blouse and her arms, hands,
and knees were covered with dirt. I said I would return another time and
thanked her. She smiled and resumed her work and I jogged back up the road to take
a bucket shower and go to work.
Mrs. Marube and her family represent one tiny example of
how the seasons really are changing in Sub-Saharan Africa. When we first
arrived we kept asking locals when the rains would come. It was the end of the
dry season and everyone was complaining about the heat (niya chisa!), insisting
that the seasons had shifted. I dismissed their comments as exaggeration and
alarmism. It seemed so strange to me that a hot-button topic and subject of
heated debates in liberal bastions of America should be on the tips of
people’s tongues in a nation reeling from one of the worst economic meltdowns in
history. Don’t they have better things to worry about? Why are they running
around talking about climate change? Are they just saying it to me because I’m
American or because I’m white and they think I’ll want to talk about it?
No - now that I’ve been here a few months, heard from
people from all walks of life about the shifting seasons, and witnessed the
effects on farmers large and small, my opinion is changing. Zimbabweans talk
about climate change amongst themselves. It is a real issue for them. Regardless
of whether the change is due to human activity or not, the results are real. It’s
not about being liberal or conservative. It’s about identifying a problem and
using the resources we have to address it for the good of people less fortunate
than ourselves. It’s a bonus that we too will benefit from lower emissions,
more sustainable sources of energy, and cleaner air. And don’t we have a moral
imperative to address this issue if there is a chance it might alleviate
negative effects for people like Mrs. Marube and result in research
which could produce cleaner air and energy security for the foreseeable future?
It is so cosmically unfortunate that due to weather
patterns, the pollution contributed by the wealthiest countries ends up
affecting climates in some of the poorest areas of the world where people
already live on the margins of survival. Sub-Saharan Africa
is one of the areas most affected by climate change. We, as Americans, are in a
position to make change. The privileged always are. I was so proud of the
taxpayers of America after
reading this article about the impact that PEPFAR has had on the fight against
HIV and AIDS in Africa: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesglassman/2011/12/02/how-to-build-on-success-against-aids-in-africa/
. The American people have contributed billions to the fight, whether they know
it or not, and we can’t stop there.
But why doesn’t the same hold for climate change? If you
don’t believe in global warming, agree to disagree. But doesn’t it make sense
to reduce emissions and seek more sustainable solutions anyway? It’s a win-win
situation. We’re going to need them eventually. There is no debate about whether
the negative effects of pollution are real. People on the ground, people who
have food security issues without throwing drought into the mix, are being
affected, so let’s do something about it. It starts in Durban, at the climate conference going on right
now. Let’s get the right demographic represented there, and let’s take
responsibility, as the most powerful nation in world, for leading the way. I
really enjoyed reading this article today about that climate conference going
on in Durban South Africa, although it indicates that real progress may be
years away - it was a particularly timely read given my conversation with Mrs.
Marube this morning. Check it out: http://allafrica.com/stories/201112061052.html
Last Friday I took Nkosi
for a run and on my way home, I swung by the office to pick up a sandwich and snack
I had left in the fridge there. Didn’t want them to sit in the office all
weekend. As I made my way down Queens in the failing light of another beautiful
African dusk, I jogged up behind two
young boys, trotting along in barefeet and tattered clothing. Running home from
town. They did a double-take when I came up behind them with a dog on a leash.
Zimbabweans are terrified of dogs, with no exceptions that I know of. These two
boys jumped into the elephant grass on either side of the path to avoid being
eaten, but I slowed and told Nkosi to sit. Again, they were amazed that a dog
would listen to me and not attack them. Five minutes later, the younger of the
two boys had taken the leash from me, the older was holding my hand, and the
four of us walked along leisurely. I had greeted them in Ndebele and quickly
learned that their English was very poor. They carried a plastic bag and
nothing else and their clothes hung off them. Both were extremely skinny. They
probably can’t afford school fees. I managed to ascertain that the older was
eleven, the younger one nine. They were much too short for their ages. I might
have guessed six and nine. Clearly their nutrition at home is insufficient. 
