African Laughter - Doris May Lessing [94]
This situation is dangerous, a classic for revolution: numbers of young people who have been promised everything, have made sacrifices and are then disappointed. As the rulers of this country know. It is reported that Mugabe is saying, ‘We made a mistake. From now on secondary education will concentrate on quality.’ And what does he plan to do with these half-educated populations, not fit for employment in the modern world, but educated out of satisfaction with village life? It is said that fear of these young people is why Mugabe is so hard on discontented students. His repressions are signalling: I will not stand for any nonsense from the youth.
It is also reported, with emotion, that when in Parliament it was announced the budget for education for the first time was larger than for defence, everyone stood up and cheered and wept.
We drive out of Harare, going west. The roads are still, to eyes used to any road in Europe, empty. You drive along, sole user of the road and then ahead of you is a bus, enveloped in black fumes. All the public vehicles emit black clouds. Why? Well, there is this question of not being able to get spare parts, and then, they don’t service them often enough. When a large new car overtakes it is a Toyota and belongs to a Chef. These cars do not belch out greasy black smoke that trails across the bush, poisoning plants and beasts. Only public transport vehicles do that, and they often break down, and sit on the roadside surrounded by disconsolate people. There are accidents. This is not because the drivers are bad: the vehicles are. Last week I met a woman whose brother, a driver, was killed because brakes failed and the bus fell over into a ravine. It is astonishing how often you meet people who have been in accidents, or whose relatives and friends have. ‘Travelling on public transport…you need plenty of courage. Of course, the Africans have no choice.’
The weather is bad. This November is cold and grey. I swear that never, ever, was it cold in November, in the old days. The ITCZ is still in the wrong place, too high, and not engaging with the air masses from the Indian Ocean. I would never have believed I could long for a thick sweater in November.
Under a low, cold, grey sky we go on west, through small towns that appear at long intervals, and then stop for lunch at a hotel which is the social centre for a large district: the dining room and bars are too many and too large for the number of people who stay in the hotel. The menu is still the old British menu, roast and grilled this and that, meat wonderful, vegetables less than wonderful, salads and fruits perfection. Everything as it was, except that now on every menu is sadza, and a common meal is steak and sadza, fried fish and sadza. Teachers from schools miles around come here for a meal, and to enjoy electric light, and to use the telephone. Hotels in remote towns like this are places of wonder to most people in the villages. They have never been in one.
In 1956 I drove here on my way to the still being built Kariba dam, through bush that has stayed in my mind as what forest ought to be. Tall and stately trees were full and graceful and above all infinitely various. For hours I drove through this bush, on the look-out for elephants, I saw game of all kinds, and stopped more than once to listen to the birds. On this trip I waited for what I remembered to begin, but it did not. If trees still stood, then every third or fourth tree had been cut down, and the stumps were raw or weathering. Or there were large stumped areas. Or each tree had lost a branch or two branches.
‘People have to eat,’ says Ayrton R. ‘People have to keep warm.