Neil in Zim: Goats and Black Joy

I woke up several days ago to the sound of screeching and was uncertain if it was a student in their dorms or animals nearby. If I were to describe it, it was slightly higher pitched than a little girl, didn’t audibly sound like any words were being shouted, but sounded as if whatever was screeching was about to be slaughtered. I was worried that none of the faculty or TAs were sprinting out of their rooms to investigate, but then wondered if the school has an all-call faculty who is responsible to tend to pre-slaughter screeching before sunrise. I later learned that a student was not in danger, but it was in fact goats that were screeching, and likely before a slaughtering.

That isn’t to say that students aren’t screeching like slaughtered goats. Living in rural Zimbabwe can be isolating, but what I didn’t realize was how gorgeous the is world around me. The students took me hiking several kilometers away from campus to The Big Rock - it’s a set of balancing rocks that overlooks the entire valley. We hiked for about half an hour before needing to climb a ladder that had two rungs, one of which was nearly off the ladder. As each student leaped up, one of the students could not stop screaming as she climbed, but soon stopped as we caught a gorgeous view of Ruwa. When you Google Ruwa, Zimbabwe, only a few things pop up. Most notably is an alien and UFO sighting in the early ‘90s, which happened 10 km north of here. Around 60 primary school students sighted an alien land in a bush near their playground. When separated, all students were asked to draw what they had seen, and many drew the nearly the same photo. The incident was eventually attributed to mass hysteria, but I, on the other hand, believe those students saw what they claimed. I wonder if the aliens stopped at The Big Rock and made that terrible ladder.

A week after visiting The Big Rock with the students, I ventured on the same hike for a morning sunrise with a couple of TAs and another faculty member. This time, we packed snacks and blankets and on top, we listened to someone play the mbira, watched the sunrise, and enjoyed our morning tea. We chatted about moving out of Zimbabwe, the African experience, and amapiano TikTok trends. I imagine this is what the aliens were hoping to do but landed their spacecraft in the wrong place.

Last Friday, a few of the faculty needed to run errands in Harare – mine was to grab knitting and crocheting needles for my intersession. We stopped by a private secondary school in Harare, where the students’ uniforms were nicely pressed and each of them greeted me, a stranger, with “Good morning, sir.” This was the first time since I have arrived seeing so many white and Asian people - it was quite jarring. I thought I had escaped seeing white moms in yoga pants dropping off their kids in their Range Rovers, but I thought wrong. We walked in and one of the headmasters (a white man with a British-like accent) greeted me with “I take it you’re American? You are more than welcome to come whenever you’d like.” I felt like it was a slight jab at the other faculty with me, all of whom were Zimbabwean. Racism certainly is a thing here, but it manifests quite differently.

We also stopped at a bank to withdraw some money. Outside was a line to control how many people were in the bank at once. We waited in the line for a while and I saw a white man walking towards the front, cutting the line. The doorman sanitized his hands and opened the door. I ask around, “Why did he get to cut the line?”

“There’s a low chance he is a VIP for the bank – it’s because he’s white,” my friend responded. Later, we left and she commented, “I understand why Americans feel so violent when they hear someone speak Arabic. That’s how I feel when I hear someone speak Afrikaans, but I don’t feel like throwing them out of an airport.” She explained that certain white people are not happy to be in Zimbabwe, including the white schoolchildren we saw at the secondary school. They call themselves Rhodies (a la Cecil Rhodes who colonized and created Rhodesia [now Zim and Zam]; also Rhodes Scholarship) because they are proud to be white colonialists.

And though racism in Zimbabwe is evident towards its own people by non-Zimbabweans, Zimbabweans seem to have a strong sense of respect, community, and politeness to any guest – especially when it comes to mealtime. When I eat in the dining hall, I am constantly asked if I like the food and if there is anything else I need. There’s a separate table with food for those with food accommodations (nut allergy, vegetarian, non-beef eaters, etc.). One day, I went to the table to grab chicken since the main meal was beef, only to find that there was no chicken left. I was not bothered at all, especially since I had a plate full of rice and vegetables. A student comes up to me several minutes later with a small bowl and single piece of chicken, “Mr. Neil, I saw you didn’t get chicken, so I brought some for you.”

“Oh, I really don’t need it, it’s ok,” I responded. The chicken tasted amazing.

At dinner, the students try having standard dinner conversations with me. “What is your favorite part of a restaurant? Do you like museums? What’s your favorite part of being on a plane?”

“The part when the plane does a 360 loop,” I responded. The students laughed, but I’m not sure if it was because of the joke or because my accent is still funny to them. When I asked them the same questions, I learned that most of them have never been on a plane, have never traveled outside of Zimbabwe, and have never been in a restaurant. I’ve started to realize that a lot of my stories are not relatable and that I should consider the assumptions I have about students.

A few days later, there were no forks available for my table, so we all used spoons and knives to eat our spaghetti. Several minutes later, one of the chefs comes up to me with a fork, “I washed this for you, Mr. Neil.”

“Oh my god, how did you even know I didn’t have a fork? I really don’t need it – what about the students around me?” I asked.

“It’s fine, please take it.” After dinner while washing dishes, a student asked me, “are you sure you can wash dishes?”

“Yes, why wouldn’t I be able to?”

“Where did you learn how to do that?” she responded.

“Umm… when my dishwasher isn’t working, I was dishes,” I said. I soon after realized that I didn’t even have a dishwasher in my EVGR premium double, 2-bedroom, 2-bathroom apartment. We continued to wash the dishes and I finished by drying them off and returning them to the kitchen. I wonder if people think I am incapable of doing many small household tasks such as laundry, dishes, and cleaning because I am American, or if they are just being extremely polite. One of the mottos of the fellowship is to be low-maintenance, high-yield – that’s been challenging because I am used to being high-maintenance, low-yield. I’m hoping by the end of the year, the students feel like I am just like them.

Last week was Intersession and I ended up leading a knitting, crocheting and embroidery workshop. I had never knit or crochet before, so I spent the Saturday and Sunday before watching YouTube videos. On Monday, we went over the history, purpose, and basic techniques for each skill. By the end of the day, every student was knitting more than I had ever done. I spent most of the day going around to each student helping them troubleshoot, re-teaching how to knit/crochet/embroider, and giving my expert creative advice -- I was basically Tim Gunn. After each day, students from other intersessions would come to the office and ask for materials.

“Mr. Neil, where did you learn how to knit and crochet? How long did it take you to learn? What was the first thing you made?” students asked. My answers: this past weekend; it took me a few hours; and a literal 10 cm by 10 cm rag.

“Oh, I learned it quite a while ago from my friends – I made a small swatch just like you all made on the first day.” I responded, trying to be relatable yet mysterious. To them, I was an expert, but behind all of that was just a few hours of YouTube, ability to quickly problem solve, and patience to allow for students to find their own solutions. Okay now this sounds like the beginning of a boring response to an interview question.

While in the middle of troubleshooting a project, one student remarked, “Thank you for being here." I was touched – the student was making a dress and was also one of the students who I am teaching how to read music (which I feel a little conflicted about re: western classical colonization but am navigating that with my advisors) and helping with her capstone paper. The next day she saw me and said, “Oh, I didn’t realize you were here.”

“Umm… this is literally my intersession, why wouldn’t I be here?” I responded.

“I forgot you existed,” she responded. High schoolers are ruthless.

As each day progressed, students kept asking if I had snacks, which I had apparently promised on day 1. “You promised you would bring snacks. It’s Wednesday and we only have 1 hour until the end of the intersession, Mr. Neil,” a student whispered. First of all, I made no such promise and second, of course I brought snacks.

Thursday was the Intersession showcase and our group set up an exhibit for each student to present their favorite works. I was so impressed with their progress: from learning how to hold needles three days before to making creative works, and could tell that they were also proud of themselves. The other intersessions included an introduction to genomics and proteomics, a theatre of the oppressed workshop, and a traditional music and dance (TD) class. The TD group put on an hour-long performance with 7 acts, each act featuring a different language, dance, or song from a different southern African group (Shona, Ndebele, Zulu, Xhosa, Swahili, Venda, Tshiluba, Tonga, Sepedi, and more). The performance was provocative, funny, and extremely well-thought out. I really loved listening and learning about the instruments and meanings behind all the new music. The students at this school have talent is so many areas outside of academics and I couldn’t be more grateful to be sharing this space with them.

In the evening, the students showcased poems and prose, and one student’s performance of Black Joy by Koleka Putuma stood out to me – she told a story contrasting growing up in Africa vs. the reflection of what others believe it is like:

That when they ask about black childhood,
all they are interested in is our pain,
as if the joy-parts were accidental.

Although she was reading someone else’s poem, I wondered how much of it is true to herself and to her classmates.

These past two weeks have been quite busy since the term just ended, but now I have a short holiday recess for the next few weeks. I’ll be spending the time on campus working on small projects with the ~4 people who are here, travel around Zimbabwe and South Africa, and hopefully begin prepping for term 3 which starts in September.

If you have tried to message me and I haven’t responded, it might be because my US phone number doesn’t work anymore through iMessage. Feel free to message me on WhatsApp using my US number, or you can iMessage me via my email. Off for now~