Joseph
Zimbabwe 1984 - I was a young girl who had a relatively easy and privileged upbringing in a middle class suburb in South Africa. We walked into a water crises - a system shocker. We bathed in each others water - whites, blacks, Indian. The team. We represented various nations of the world - the Zimbabwian rifles did not enjoy our presence - I was introduced to political strife as one regime positioned itself to overthrow another. It was my introduction to war outside of my own countries borders. We were hated and I didn't understand why, because our message was one of love. I sat with a "man-servant" (as they were called then), and heard his dry mouthed anxiety for the future - bread and butter; His next job; unwittingly a victim of a socio-economic alcatraz. A little blonde-haired girl crawled onto my lap and asked why I had such curly hair - Amongst my black sisters my hair was "white". Indians embraced me more because they saw my gra