well, that was Marechera in House of hunger. I didn’t have much to carry but just a mind full of dreams and ambitions.
Today marks 6 years since I left my home country involuntarily. Everything happened so fast a part of me wasn’t ready but there is a saying, “There is almost no such thing as ready. There is only now, and you may as well do it now.”
So, this is me standing at that “Departure” gate with my family. A part of me wanted to run away and go back home and but the thought of being Independent and finally affording what I want really want excited me. Never in my life had I dreamt or imagined living without my family because I am such a “I want my mom” or “Daddy this” kind of girl. But here was I, so optimistic that in the next three years I will be owning a Range Rover. Laugh with me because It’s still in the shop.
Little did I know that was my final goodbye to my sister. Everything starts to make sense now. The last days she was extremely clingy, she would just budge in my room for no reason. She would wait for me doing nothing something she never did. She was so reticent the day I left. If only I knew I could have never left.
I cried the entire 18 hours of my flight; I think I traumatised the guy who was sitting next to me. Not to mention that he ran out of tissues. I landed in Düsseldorf with a dreadful feeling like something wrong is about to happen. I had my first sleep paralysis in German. It was horrifying.
I wish I could go into details of my experience but I haven’t told my family yet and I do not want my parents to come and fetch me here before I am done “being miss Independent”
I can roughly say I have learnt so much about life in the past 6 years than I did my whole life. I mourned my sister, my uncles, childhood friends alone in my apartment. I struggled with grief and anxiety alone. At some point I was extremely ill and I was one of the people to catch the first wave of Covid 19. It was terrible. I was bedridden for 20 days straight, I couldn’t eat or do anything. I am even teary writing this. It was hell. And I also lost my job at some point. Imagine losing your only source of income in a foreign land. I just couldn’t tell my parents; they had just lost their daughter and my 2 uncles. I had to fight my demons and I am glad I lived to tell the story. God is faithful.
At some point I worked at hospice with my friend. Looking back man we were just kids ok maybe little adults. We had no business getting used to death like that. We had no experience and this was our “voluntary year” and of all the places how did we end up in a hospice nhai Faffie ? Did I mention that we were the first black people to work and live in that small village. I dreaded going out because people would pop their heads on window and stare at us. The racism was hell, let’s not go down that road.
Enough of the sob stories. German has taught me to be rude without being rude. To stand up for myself and to tell people to get away respectfully. You can throw me in any jungle and I will survive.
A public diary. 