Neil in Zim: Half and half

School is out! The end of the term felt like a fever dream – all the students packed up and left, James (head of school) moved back to the States, and now campus is dead silent. Before school ended, I helped James and his wife, Lauren, finish up a puzzle of a horse and a dog (or as Jiwoo would call it – the dog and pony show). There is a new puzzle of a bunch of cats that I will probably try working on in the new year. I bought James’ car, and it is quite liberating. In college, having a car was one of the most freeing experiences and here I can say the same thing. The only issue is that changing ownership of the vehicle is possibly the most unnecessarily difficult and convoluted tasks I’ve ever done. It’s like going to the DMV, except for 14 days and each time you go they tell you that you need to go somewhere else before you can officially change ownership. Some of the teachers have been telling me it’s not necessary to change ownership as it’s costly and they never check – as long as you have the original registration book, it is your car. I’m hoping to resolve all this soon.

Alexa (one of my friends from college) just got to Zim two weeks ago and will be here during research until June! It’s been so nice to have someone else who I can relate to, venture out with, or just sit in silence and exist with. She’s been showing me around some places I haven’t yet been to, which has been so fun. There is a decommissioned horse racetrack in Harare that gets turned into a farmer’s market on Saturdays, called the Old Stables Market. It’s in a pretty nice, gentrified area of Harare – evidenced by all the white attendees of the market and has a lot of stands with food, trinkets, and other goods.

At the market, there was a stand with pastries and frozen slushie-like drinks. The two flavors were yellow (lemonade) and pink (strawberry-watermelon). I walked up to the stand asking myself if I wanted the yellow or the pink flavor – even though I wasn’t really into the idea of lemonade, nor watermelon. Yellow or pink, yellow or pink. As I got to the front of the queue, I saw a lady holding a cup with both yellow and pink and asked her, “Oh, can you get both?” and she respond in a British accent, “Oh yes, you can get half and half,” to which I clarified in my British accent, “half and half? That’s lovely.” She then looked at me like I was crazy because I imitated her accent and walked away.

It was the market’s Christmas sale, so they decorated it with wreaths, some trees, and plenty of drinks for parents to enjoy. Santa was a little bit on the skinnier side and was riding on the back of a pick-up truck, nails painted, drinking beer – some type of neoliberal propaganda I’m sure is what some of the parents would have described them to be. It was nice to finally see Zim getting in the Holiday spirit, even though they are several weeks late.

I took Alexa to the Ruwa vegetable market and there were two remarkable incidents:

Everyone suddenly started speaking in English the second we entered. A few vendors shouted to the TAs who accompanied us (local Zimbabweans), “why would you bring these white people here and NOT bring them to my stand?”
A group of ladies were debating whether Alexa and I were white or something else. The longer I stay in Zim, the more I am convinced that I am white.

I called Vivek a few days ago and we celebrated a recent milestone of his, “I’m so happy for you, you deserve this so much,” I said. He responded, “You’re so right.” And that made me realize that I need to be prouder of my own accomplishments. I think I’ve slowly started to realize that I can be good at anything: whether it’s teaching, doing research, starting up Neil’s knits, pursuing medicine, shooting films, or whatever else I can set my mind to. And what helps the most is the fact that I have the opportunity and the resources to explore those things. The school’s motto is “Where talent meets opportunity” which highlights the dire need for access and resource for highly talented students. I feel so lucky that while growing up, I have never had to think about lack of resource (education related, health related, life related) and here, access to a camera or knitting needles or a university graduate to talk to makes such a big impact for students who may have never had access to even basic needs growing up. While talented students have met opportunity at the school, I feel that my own budding talents have finally had the opportunity to grow, too. And while I do fantasize about the endless possibilities and trajectories my life can go, I have realized that I also need to be pragmatic – unlike Jennifer Coolidge’s character in The White Lotus, whose role seemed extremely unnecessary, though deliberate. The premise of her character is that she has traveled to Hawaii to spread her late mother’s ashes, and while there, has significant back problems. While I have been enjoying the show (thank you, Pranav, for the recommendation) and have been manifesting aspects of it, I really hope that I don’t experience anything remotely similar while I’m in Istanbul. My next post will likely be while I’m in Turkey, or shortly after – so until then, Happy Holidays!