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By Root 1481 0

patted, and his eyes never leave your face. Another dog, a small Alsatian, is lying in a dusty hollow near the back door. He watches, his whole body saying, I am not worthy to be noticed, while his eyes crave affection. When you go to pet this dog, the big dog’s nose, head, then shoulders are interposed between your hand and the smaller dog’s head. Again and again this happens: it is not possible to caress the Alsatian, for the big dog will not allow it. The Alsatian knows your goodwill, but knows too it has no alternative but to ask for nothing as it lies in its dusty place. It came as a refugee to this friendly house, full of people of all colours, and of cats, monitored by this jealous dog. Its owners went south to The Republic–they Took the Gap, and left it behind. This Alsatian, say its new owners, making a joke of it to black guests, is a racist. It has been taught to attack black people. Now its skills, for which it was valued, applauded, and given titbits, are reproached: when it performs as it was trained to do, it is chastised and rebuked. This confused and unhappy dog is determined on one thing: that it will not lose this home where at least it is fed and has a place to sleep. As it watches the confident and successful dog, the Alsatian seems to be silently weeping. If it were human, it would be saying, ‘I am sorry, I can’t help it, I don’t know why I am wicked.’

THE BOOK TEAM

We take a coach to a town in Central Province. The coach is efficient, well-driven, punctual. Gone are the days when the Team went on long journeys by bus, for the authorities saw a humorous cartoon by Chris of the Team standing bedraggled in the rain near a broken-down bus, and insisted they should travel less dangerously: in the five weeks of my trip the newspapers reported four major accidents with buses. ‘We don’t want to lose the whole Team all at once!’ cried the officials. Nor is their diet restricted to oranges, bread, milk. ‘It was a healthy diet, at least,’ says Cathie. But even on this trip, at the end when funds ran low, I heard the Team telling Cathie that she really must not expect them to put up with it, if she fed them all on five dollars after a hard day’s work. ‘I lose pounds on every trip,’ says Chris, who is too thin.

At the half-way stop, we sit around under trees in a café garden, and I listen while Talent, Sylvia, Cathie, and Chris give each other information–through chat, gossip. An apparently casual process. The Team are at that stage when they must be conscious of what their strengths and weaknesses are. These four small vulnerable people are besieged with demands. Every village in Zimbabwe would like the Team to visit. In Harare the telephone never stops ringing. Aid organizations, government departments, ‘Third World Groupies’ sense that here is something extraordinary. The Team now begin to see that they are strong, because of how other people see them. And how can they cope with what is asked of them if they are weak? They discuss their ‘styles of work’, and gently criticize each other. I realize I am watching a process that was the aim of the old communist activists. But not one of these people is a communist: they share an ironical patience with the political circus. When I ask if they have read how in old Russia idealists ‘went to the people’ with their skills and their enthusiasm, they say no: but they are interested to hear about it. ‘I don’t think it’s strange that we are the same,’ says Talent. ‘They had people who needed a lot of help and so do we.’

Contemplating the extent of help needed, the depth of need, the four involuntarily laugh, and look at each other, sharing humorous incredulity.

It is the level of expectation that surprised them…that supported them…that inspires them. And, often, dismays them. What they are doing is, in fact, impossible.

Two springs, or rivers–or floods–fed that expectation. One was, that the whites had gone, with their persistent denigration of everything black, their cold, sniffy, self-righteous disapproval. The Africans, with that pressure off them, felt that now