I was lucky I suppose, that I discovered it at all. Many foreigners come to Afrika and never really get to hear what locals think of them and their time spent on the continent. And many foreigners leave with a distorted sense of what they \u2018understand\u2019 about the culture they\u2019ve spent 3-6 weeks or months volunteering in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019d like to think that I\u2019ve had a deeper view, a peek under the surface, thanks to a few incredible friends that I made in my time in Zimbabwe. Friends that would eventually let me know that to them; I wasn\u2019t Black. Despite the fact my dad is Afrikan-American. Despite the fact that he was abused, beat up, and disrespected by a white institutional racism similar to the one colonized Afrikan countries have endured for centuries. Despite the fact that I grew up with militant, angry black uncles and aunties, and that my grandmother was a domestic her entire life. Despite all that, to my Zimbabwean friends I am still seen as a murungu. Not a sister in the struggle. Not a kindred spirit. Before they see my color, they see my \u201cforeignness\u201d. My status as a person from a wealthy country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I didn\u2019t realize how little being \u201cBlack\u201d means anywhere outside of America until I came to the one place where I thought \u201cBlack\u201d was how we all identified ourselves. You see, in America, because we have no tribes, no oral history, no sense of where we come from (thank you slavery) \u2013 there is no nationality. There is no identifying someone as Zimbabwean, Nigerian, Ghanaian, Zambian. Slavery separated families, mothers, sons, husbands and wives \u2013 scattered them across the continent, never to be seen again. Oral histories were lost. Bloodlines broken. Any semblance of knowing where your grandmother came from \u2013 completely gone. I don\u2019t even know my great-grandmother\u2019s or great-grandfather\u2019s name, much less their origins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, for centuries, there has only been \u201cBlack\u201d. We are all Black. Historically, if we had one drop of blood of Afrikan descent, we were discriminated against as if we were fully Afrikan. The fact that I am only half black (and half Chinese) means that when the time to look for a job, get a loan, or get into university comes, I am still and always will be considered \u201cBlack\u201d, and generally considered \u201cless than\u201d.
That consistent oppression over the last three centuries has created a consistent, if reconstructed identity. An identity, rooted in prejudice, nevertheless gave us something to be connected to, something to be a part of – a makeshift tribe if you will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We came together culturally, to create our own new heritage that includes everyone \u2013 blue-black, brown, caramel and in-between. We take solace in knowing that we\u2019re all connected \u2013 somehow.
So imagine the dismay I felt when I discovered that in Afrika, \u201cBlack\u201d doesn\u2019t mean anything. Many Black people in America have an unspoken whimsical fantasy that one day, we\u2019ll return to Afrika and discover where we come from. That the continent will welcome us back \u2018home\u2019 and, for those lucky enough to travel there, we\u2019ll acquire some renewed sense of deep-rooted identity. That in some metaphysical sense, we\u2019ll reconnect with who we are. Who our ancestors are. Where we belong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not to say that\u2019s what I came to Zimbabwe for \u2013 I honestly kind of fell into the country wide-eyed and bushy-tailed (true story: I\u2019d never heard of Robert Mugabe). But the people I met very quickly made me feel welcome. The culture was familial, friendly, community-based, homey \u2013 all the positive things we associate with traditional \u2018Black\u201d culture in America. Cultural traits you rarely see in the large urban cities I\u2019ve been living in the past 10 years. It didn\u2019t take long to make real connections with some amazing friends. To feel like this was family. So I assumed that of course we were all Black. They saw themselves the same way I did. Sure we came from different countries, but hey \u2013 oppression is oppression right? Apparently not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To my friends who regularly hang out with other expats who are actually white (i.e. of European descent \u2013 or straight from Europe), I may have been different because of the melanin in my skin and my attitude. But to the average Zimbabwean \u2013 the guy who I called for a taxi, the one who served me food at Gava\u2019s, the domestic who cleaned my friend\u2019s house \u2013 to them, I was just another Murungu. And it wasn\u2019t until I had a (painfully) honest conversation with my \u2018salad\u2019 friends, that I discovered, when push comes to shove, even they saw me as a foreigner first, and a \u2018black person\u2019 a distant second.
It was a blow, I have to admit. I didn\u2019t believe the first one who told me. But the second, and the third, and the fourth convinced me. They helped me understand how myopic the American view is. The way \u201cBlack\u201d people see the world in America, on some level, crushed me. There is a beauty in knowing your roots. A grand, connected to the universe, timeless reassurance of knowing where your ancestors came from. A steadiness, a sense of comfort, a security in the old ways, old languages, old traditions. Traditions and languages we, in America, are wildly grasping for \u2013 and gradually giving up on, when we realize the echoes of the past become more and more distant with each passing generation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am jealous. Deeply jealous that my friends in Afrika know where their parents and their parent\u2019s parent\u2019s come from. Regardless of how strongly they adhere to or subscribe to the old traditions \u2013 they HAVE them. There are stories behind the superstitions. Reasons behind the cultural norms. A memory as old as time to guide them along their journey towards creating a new generation, built upon an ever-growing foundation that stretches deep down into the soil of the earth from which they came from and will one day return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am now irrevocably aware that my roots are tenuous, shallow, and fabricated from the little my enslaved ancestors were able to salvage from the wreckage of our own history. Maybe that\u2019s why I keep coming back to
the continent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My friends laugh and say no one is surprised any longer when I pop back up in Zimbabwe after being gone for a month, a few weeks, here and there. But in the short time there, somehow it feels like home. Like there\u2019s a distant thrumming – a vibration that feels right. Like a radio frequency that plays a song you barely remember but could never forget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It wasn\u2019t until I realized how fabricated the identity we\u2019ve created in America truly was, that I was able to truly appreciate the sense of home I now feel in Zimbabwe. So I thank my friends for being honest, and letting me know I\u2019m a Murungu. They trusted me enough to tell me the truth. Because even though I\u2019m not one of them, it\u2019s enough that I am part of the family, even if I might just be that distant cousin that you just call aunty because no one knows who she\u2019s actually related to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was lucky I suppose, that I discovered it at all. Many foreigners come to Afrika and never really get to hear what locals think of them and their time spent on the continent. And many foreigners leave with a distorted sense of what they \u2018understand\u2019 about the culture they\u2019ve spent 3-6 weeks or months […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":251,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1525","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-society"},"yoast_head":"\n