Going Home - Doris May Lessing [69]
‘I’m sorry things haven’t gone well for you,’ I said.
‘I’m not complaining, don’t think that. Some people have it lucky and others don’t. That’s life, isn’t it? But sometimes I think we’re worse off than the natives. They don’t seem to worry as much as we do. And they’re such a cheerful lot—I envy them. I do envy them. And they’re so poor. One of them’s a friend of mine. Yes, a real friend. She was my nanny for my little girl. Now I go and see her. She’s in Highfield—you know, the new township. It’s pretty, isn’t it? I told the Superintendent she is still working for me, so I can go and see her. She’s always so cheerful and they live on £10 a month, five of them. It makes me feel ashamed, with my troubles. She says to me: “Now have a good cry, missus, and tell me what’s wrong. We’re both women, aren’t we? We both have the same troubles.” So I do…’
She looked at me anxiously, afraid she had not made me understand something very important to her. ‘You know, years ago, I’d never have believed it if someone had said I could feel about a native woman as if she were my real friend. But I do. So things are changing here. Don’t you think they are changing?’
7
About this time I began to feel a restlessness, the lack of something. What was it? Of course, a car—now in London I use buses and trains, and in moments of urgency a taxi, and never want a car. But in these American suburbs life is built around the motor-car. Without a car one is incomplete.
I therefore borrowed one and drove fast down to Bulawayo, passing Gatooma, Hartley and Gwelo.
In Gwelo I wanted to see the fine new steel-works; apparently there is only one other like it in the world. But they would not give me permission because of my political views. I do not know whether they imagined I would be able to deduce the secret processes of steel-making from a single walk around the works, and afterwards use these secrets for evil ends, or—but I don’t know. I was sorry about this, because people tell me this is one of the most interesting places to see in Southern Rhodesia.
Instead I had a good look at the new secondary school for Africans which will be opened next year. It is built on a beautiful site on high ground outside Gwelo; a fine building, with accommodation for pupils and teachers every bit as good as that considered suitable for white pupils and teachers. I was told that they are now discouraging white visitors, because these go off and complain bitterly about the Government which is spoiling the natives.
Then I had a look at the housing in Gwelo itself.
All these towns, big and small, are on the same pattern, which is the same pattern as in South Africa. Flying over these cities one can see the shape of industrialization emerging: the white town rising tall and shapely in skyscrapers, or spreading itself in gardened villas; and around them the native townships. From the air the townships look like a child’s playing blocks arithmetically arranged; hundreds of identical small huts or houses. The older townships are a confusion of brick lines, shanties and shacks.
An African’s experience of urban life is the same in any city of white Africa—Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban, Salisbury, Bulawayo, the cities of the Copper Belt, the towns of East Africa. An African enters the white man’s town with an assortment of ‘passes’ in his hand; must submit to the sometimes brutal, sometimes paternal, Location Superintendent, to the welfare officers and the police; he enters industrialization through the only gate there is: the segregated township. The policy for the Reserves differs from country to country, but not for the towns.
Gwelo is a miniature of the bigger towns. There is a new township for the