Sometimes you meet someone who lingers in your mind, whose encounter you never forget. A while ago, when I was on safari, we came to a campsite completely empty - except for the Sarahs. The Sarahs were two researchers, one Zimbabwean and one Namibian, doing work on the black mongoose, a species never before studied. They came by our campfire, hungry for human contact after a week in solitude.
Sarah from Zimbabwe was from a farming family. We chatted a bit about politics (I can never resist!) and she told me that her family was one of the first to be evicted from their land when Mugabe undertook his misguided land reallocation scheme in the late 1990s. That's not to say that the system was all right - it wasn't and wealth lay almost solely in the hands of the white farmers. But to forcibly evict people from their homes, without compensation - not to mention without a plan for the use of that land - ignores the fact that this was, for better or worse, their home too.
She had much grace and a twinkle in the eye, and spoke with great fondness for the people she grew up with and the animals she raised. I listened to this woman, forced from her home, declared an Enemy of the State, and could not help but wonder where her optimism and acceptance came from. And then I told her that I was tempted to visit Zimbabwe, to do a multi-day canoe trip in Mana Pools National Park, and her eyes lit up and she started speaking about the beauty of that trip, and that I must contact old friends of her family's and then she said -
"I do wish I could go home. Just for one week."
It nearly broke my heart. I could go on about the plight of refugees and internally displaced persons, but if you are interested, check out www.unhcr.org for stories of people forced from their homes.
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