The first time, I felt that gut-wrenching feeling. The first time the tears came streaming down as if a dam wall had broken. The first time I watched them fade into the distance. The first time, I was six. The first time I remember waving. We used to wave and wave and wave, even when we knew they couldn’t see anymore. If I stopped waving, they would be gone, gone forever. A thousand million years was what my young mind thought would be an eternity. I learnt at an early age to say, “See you in a thousand million years.” I never dreamt that this scene would replay over and over in the years to come.
I am seventh generation Anglo-African, my homeland, Zimbabwe, or Zim as we fondly refer to it. I never dreamt I would be saying goodbye to my country. My childhood was fantastic, full of cheerful memories. We didn’t grow up with the finer things of life, but we were blissful. We enjoyed the African weather, which was mostly hot and spent hours, maybe even days, swimming. We had grocery stores and donut shops; ice-cream was sometimes available. We would ride our bikes everywhere with no care in the world. Christmases and holidays were spent with every family member you could possible crowd into one house, grandparents, uncles, aunts, dozens of cousins and often other close family friends. However, with age comes wisdom, or at least awareness of the things going on around you.
As I grew I became more aware of the change in my country, or at least as I grew the change in the country grew. Zim was once known as the bread basket of Africa, a flourishing nation. The president, Robert Gabriel Karigamombe Mugabe, is currently 84 and has been in power for 30 years. He has been labeled one of the 10 worst dictators in the world. His power has been like that of a disease, slowly devouring our bread basket until there was nothing left. The once-thriving nation is now just another statistic of a ruined one.
The old Zim was gone, faded into oblivion, and the new Zim was something I could not identify with. The new Zim was one with lines of cars that would wrap, 5 times around the block to get gas. It was one where the policemen were no longer friendly; but threatening and notorious for violence. The new Zim had what queues in the grocery store where we would wait for hours to get bread, if there was any bread. The new Zim was one where you bought your driver’s license with money, cigarettes or beer. The new Zim had pain on the faces that were once filled with smiles. The new Zim had two distinct cultures, white and black, instead of the old one family of Zimbabweans. It was as if I had moved countries; my little black friends now looked at me with hatred instead of love. Why? The white people suddenly became the enemy. Things that happened years ago visited us again; the ghosts of our ancestors came to visit, and people decided to take it out on our generation. My friends no longer saw themselves as my friends. My country was disintegrating, slowly but surely, and I had no way of changing it.
We had a tradition in my family that when someone would leave, you would stand in the driveway and wave. You would keep waving even when you knew they couldn’t see you anymore. I had to do this over and over. People began to leave Zim in large numbers; it is estimated that over 500,000 left in 15 years, out of a total population of 13,000,000. I felt like I waved goodbye to them all. Standing in driveways, airports, church parking lots, we waved. Our arms surprisingly never grew tired, as if someone waved with us. Somehow we would gain the strength to face the next one, a strength that was not human.
I said goodbye to Bethy, my 13-year-old best friend. We knew intimate details about each other and would spend hours late at night giggling and discussing our deepest passions. I said goodbye to Rosie, the next best friend in line. Her family had to leave because her Dad had no job and had found a new one in New Zealand. I said goodbye to Allison; their farm was re-possessed, taken away; they lost everything they had. I said goodbye to Lauren, Paidamoyo and Mark. I said goodbye to my dearest cousins, who were like siblings to me. Then my grandparents had to leave as their pension become non-existent, had to go and live with my aunt and uncle. Every family member left one by one, and we waved.
It was my turn to leave the next, time to fly, something I had never done before. At the age of 19, travelling in an airplane was a whole new adventure for me. I was in Harare International Airport in terminal A, gate A. There is only one terminal and only two gates. I remember my little family standing in a circle. I had to hug each one, first my youngest sister Emma she was about 14. She was somewhat oblivious to what was going on and hugged in a way that said, “I’ll see you again… soon.” My next little sister was Nicole, who hugged me in utter desperation, clinging to me for dear life and crying hysterically. My mom was next, gaining strength from her body I hugged hard, not urgently but hard enough to be reassured that I was doing the right thing. Finally my Dad; I almost couldn’t do it; I knew the pain and fear he was feeling but there was nothing I could. I hugged him for what felt like hours, but I had to eventually let go, wave one last time and walk away, with fake confidence that I really didn’t possess.
It was a strange occurrence; I had already said goodbye to my homeland. The country I grew up in no longer existed, yet the pain was so raw I could barely breathe. Goodbyes are always hard, but this was different. The wounds had already been trodden over and over and now, all alone, leaving every family member behind, I had to go to a land further away than my mind could obtain. I knew it was for the best, but I always thought I would return to Zim. I assumed I would be one of those students who went back for summer break, or Christmas. Alas, I have never been back.
There is a kind of wave that is easily forgotten: the one that says hello. But we don’t tend to remember every hello wave. It seems the goodbye waves are etched in our memories, dug into our minds with knife-like precision. Wave I must; it will be a lifetime of waving. I will keep waving forever and ever; it is not a goodbye that ever ends. Losing my homeland will never end, it will always be a part of me. I will continue to wave goodbye to all that I’ve known as home. This time I’ll say with anguish, “See you in a thousand million years.”
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