WRITING TO THE PRESIDENT

imbabwe when she first worked there in 1989.
“I wrote this story to show how painful it is to be uprooted, and then to seek shelter and face hostility and racism. But presidents and prime ministers don’t last forever. One day Zimbabwe’s children will be able to return. This story has been inspired by and is dedicated to the late Yvonne Vera, a great Zimbabwean writer,” – Kathleen McCreery.
WRITING TO THE PRESIDENT
By Kathleen McCreery
I am writing a letter. I am writing to the President, Mr Robert Mugabe.
Once Robert Mugabe was a hero. But that was a long time ago, before I was born. I am 9 years old. And I am very angry with the President. There is a lot I want to say to him. “When you write a letter,” our teacher told us, “you should go straight to the point.” So I do.
Dear President Mugabe,
Why did you let them bomb the office where my father works? It was a newspaper office, a peaceful place. People sat at their desks and they looked at their computer screens and they typed, they talked on the telephone and they went to meetings. They were just putting words on paper, as I am now. Is that a crime?
This is not the first time my father’s newspaper has been attacked. In January, there was a big explosion and the printing presses were destroyed. And before that people were beaten just for buying a copy. You had to be brave to read the Daily News, and even more brave to work there.
Once I was in town with my mother buying school shoes. I saw the police arresting a man who was selling the paper. They said he was blocking the traffic. The man was not in the way at all. A bus had broken down, but that was not his fault, it happens all the time.
They arrested the newspaper seller, but they have not arrested anybody for bombing my father’s office or blowing up the printing presses. Yet everybody knows who has done these things. A Minister in your government, Mr. Moyo, said the Daily News was a threat and should be silenced, and it was.
My father was not in the office when they bombed it, so he was not hurt.
That is not true. I rub out the word “hurt” and then I write:
…so he was not injured. But he has changed. My father is a big man, with a big smile and a big laugh. He does not laugh anymore. There used to be a light in his eyes, but now it is as though someone has closed a door and shut out the light. He used to clear his plate, but now he pushes it away with food still on it. I think his belly is getting smaller.
He was talking to my mother, the television was on so they thought I would not hear, but I caught the word “jail”. And now my father does not spend the night at home any more. He comes without warning for an hour or two and then he goes away again.
My mother has been crying. When our maid Violet dropped a plate on the floor and it smashed, she screamed, and she shouted at Violet. And then she burst into tears. Violet put her arms around my mother and helped her sit down and told me to make some tea. So you see, my mother has enough to worry about already.
I have never written such a long letter. My hand is tired. I wonder if I should tell the President about my Auntie Chido. We went to Gweru for her funeral. She was an instructor at the Gweru Teachers’ College, and her husband was in the army there. He died last year. Then it was Chido’s turn. My mother was very sad. She said she did not expect to bury her baby sister. When we returned to Harare, we brought my cousins back with us. So now my mother and Violet have five children to care for, and my sister and I have to share our rooms, our clothes, our books and our toys.
My mother is worried about Chido’s baby Blessing. If he has AIDS like his mother, he will need special drugs. They are very expensive. My mother works at the Avenues Clinic, but she can’t just help herself to the medicine.
She is a radiologist. She takes pictures of people’s insides. When she comes home she is always tired. She has to take a lot of pictures of the patients’ lungs, because when you have AIDS, you often get TB or pneumonia, and there are more and more people with AIDS in Zimbabwe. One night my mother cried and said she just couldn’t do it any more. But she did. She got up the next morning and went to the clinic.
My mother also takes pictures of people’s bones. Many people come to the clinic with broken arms and legs and injuries to their heads. HIV-AIDS is not the fault of Robert Mugabe. But the broken bones are his fault.
My hand is rested now. So I write,
My mother says the police and army and war veterans are beating everyone, even old women who have nothing to do with the strikes or the protests. People are afraid. And they are hungry. When we go to the supermarket the shelves are bare. Violet and my mother and my cousin Victoria have to queue for hours to buy mealie meal or cooking oil. There’s no milk for my small sister or my baby cousin.
I need to get more paper. I go to my father’s desk in the room he uses as an office. It has always been messy, but today it’s very tidy. It is easy to find the paper and an envelope.
When I come back, my cousin Victoria is sitting on the bed. She is reading my letter. She has a strange look on her face. My cousin is older and bigger than I am, she is 14. Maybe I have spelled some words wrong.
“What is this?” Victoria sounds angry.
“I am sending a letter to the President to -”
Victoria does not let me finish. She slaps me again and again and she yells, “Are you crazy? Are you stupid? Aren’t our parents in enough trouble?”
“They are my parents, not yours!” I cry. I am immediately ashamed of myself. We are Shona people, our cousins are our brothers and sisters, there is no difference. And Victoria’s parents are dead. But she did not have to slap me.
“And this is how you thank them, you betray them!”
“I thought if I wrote to President Mugabe I could make him understand.”
“Why should he listen to a little girl?”
“He has children too, I thought he might….” My voice trails away.
“He doesn’t care about other people’s children. Now you must promise never to write such a letter again. It is dangerous. Promise!” Her voice is low now, like a hissing snake.
“I promise.” Victoria folds my letter up very small and she puts it in her shoe.
I go out to the garden and sit underneath the avocado tree. Our old dog Friday comes and settles down next to me. He always knows when I am sad. He whines and licks my leg. I scratch him behind the ears. It is chilly in the garden, but I don’t move.
In my head there is a cliff and I am walking towards the edge with my eyes wide open, but I can’t see that it is a cliff and then Victoria grabs hold of my dress and pulls me back just in time, just before I step into the air. I look down then, and I can see the rocks and my breath leaves my body. And I turn around and I see my mother and my father and Violet and Blessing and my sister Nokthula and my cousin Tendai and a lot of other people, thousands of people, and the army and police and the Green Bombers and the war veterans are pushing us towards the edge of the cliff, and there is nothing any of us can do.
I am still sitting under the tree when my mother comes out of the house. She is carrying my sweater. She sits on the ground beside me even though she is still wearing her uniform. In her hand she has my letter. It is creased and crumpled now. My mother puts my sweater around my shoulders. She leaves her arm around me. I start to cry.
“I’m sorry, Mother, I thought I could help.”
She hugs me and says, “It is an excellent letter, Tsitsi. I am proud of you. You are your father’s daughter.”
A wave of relief washes over me. “You are not angry with me.”
“No. But it is good you did not send the letter. It is also good that I know what you are feeling.”
She takes a box of matches from her pocket, and she gives me the letter. I tear it into strips and then we burn each strip on the bare patch of ground under the avocado tree. I watch the fire eat my words and turn them into ash.