African Laughter - Doris May Lessing [205]
‘Why don’t they…?’
‘Why don’t we…?’
‘What if…?’
In the coffee valley the government AIDS campaign is working. ‘Not just the government, we are at them all the time too. But it’s sad, because at the beer drinks and dances they are afraid to get drunk and have a good time. Now they’re all getting religion instead, you know, the song and dance religion. A good thing, because they have hard enough lives without not having any fun at weekends.’
The Coffee Farmer has been mugged in Mutare in the middle of the day. He had just been to the bank to deposit cheques. The muggers thought he had been in to collect the month’s wages for his workers. ‘They certainly knew what they were doing,’ says the Coffee Farmer, with more than a hint of admiration. ‘One tripped me, and the other frisked me. They were off before I got up off the pavement. I ran to the corner but the car was too far off to see the number plate. They must have been watching for the moment when only one person was on the street. Well, bad luck, I only had a couple of dollars on me.’
A PASSIONATE PROTAGONIST
In Harare’s beautiful park I was the victim of clever pickpockets. Two engaging youths approached me and a companion and asked if we would sponsor a walk in aid of something or other. One suggested I should spread the form where I would note my contribution on his back, which he helpfully turned so I could sign. While I signed, my hands were occupied, and he slid his own back and into my bag, where he lifted over a hundred pounds. Meanwhile his associate engaged the attention of my friend.
When I told this story to a woman who cannot endure the slightest criticism of Zimbabwe, she at first looked anguished, but rallied. ‘You say it was a clever operation?’ ‘Oh yes, brilliant, I can’t imagine pickpockets in London with such charm, such persuasiveness.’ She sat back, with a satisfied sigh, like a proud mother.
HOT SPRINGS
Under the whites this was a popular resort, but it is ruinous now, the pool and bathing cabins unused. Of the old amenities only a kiosk remains for the sale of cold drinks. Young men are crowded on benches around trestle tables drinking beer and playing draughts with paper boards and beer tops for counters. At a separate table an old man holds court, surrounded by young men and boys listening to his reminiscences. They sit as if hypnotized by their attention to him, sit motionless, but often laugh and then sit silently again for fear of missing anything. This scene, in its wildly beautiful surroundings, reminds me, again, of Italy, the zest of it, the enjoyment. Only sit near the draughts players and you are charged with the spirit of enjoyment.
I think of Guy Clutton-Brocks’, ‘They are the happiest lot in the world. They get enjoyment out of anything, anywhere, at any time. And we are the most joyless.’
Ever since I can remember, I’ve listened to groups of whites speculating about why this should be so, every level from ‘What the hell’s wrong with us, anyway?’ to, ‘What is there in our culture, where did it start, what happened to make it so hard for us to enjoy ourselves? The northern climate? Protestantism? The Industrial Revolution?’ (‘When in doubt blame the Industrial Revolution.’)
So bullied are we all by ideologues, it is hard to say the Africans have anything whites do not, or that we have anything they do not, but the fact is, up and down Africa, as travellers have always averred, they enjoy themselves.
Missionary Moffat (the elder) wrote in his diary how he lay awake in his camp bed on a moonlit night and listened to how across the river the poor black savages were dancing and singing to their drums and generally enjoying themselves. He saw it as his God-given task to put an end to all this sinful pleasure. Well, they certainly tried.
For hours on that afternoon young men came drifting in to drink beer and play draughts;