House That Love Built

House that Love Built

I like my house very much, but it takes some getting used to. That’s to be expected because the place was constructed by a succession of VIM teams, none of which was over-burdened with professional building contractors. I’d watched the floor-plan staked out in 1993, and I’d seen the edifice standing almost complete in 1995. In 2000, it was temporarily occupied (by a choirmaster, I think), and in 2007, I have moved in. The place has 3 bedrooms, two baths, a carport, a kitchen, a patio, a sitting room, and a dining room complete with fireplace and a cathedral ceiling. The beds are modest, but the furniture is not. Massive, ornate, and covered with green velvet, the chairs and sofa look somehow familiar—though I’ve never actually been in a New Orleans whorehouse. The house has running water more than 60% of the time. The cold water is pure and delightfully cool; the hot water does get hot, apparently through some gas-powered apparatus that I have not figured out. The VIM teams installed a decent stove and an extremely nice refrigerator. Unfortunately, both of these ultra-modern appliances are electrical, and, even during those hours when electricity has been available (less than 25% during the 10 days I’ve been in residence), the current has not been sufficient for either appliance to function. I also had ants, but I poisoned them. I estimate the casualty figures at 15-25 thousand, and I still feel slightly guilty about this holocaust. The house temperature is perfect during the day; nights are a bit chilly, but blankets have been provided in abundance. I have candles, but, Abe Lincoln stories not withstanding, I have not found study by candlelight to be effective. Therefore, because the sun sets early in late-winter Zimbabwe, I’ve had some early-to-bed nights.

Thursday night, however, I stayed up a bit later than usual. Some persons of highly questionable parentage set fire to the residential part of campus in three areas. The houses of academic staff were never in serious danger, but the tiny, thatch-roofed shacks of some maintenance and service workers were definitely under threat. So, I spent a few hours holding a fire-line that paralleled the western margin of the athletic fields and then ran down a narrow path towards the settling-pond reservoir. The intrepid defenders on this blaze numbered from four to eight, depending largely on fatigue. We had one shovel and some broken branches.

Carrying a green plastic bucket, a little girl of about eleven ran back and forth between the fire and the nearest waterpoint. We’d dip a shirt into the bucket and then beat at the fire with it. Mostly, of course, we back-fired, igniting numerous small, controllable blazes along our defense-line and letting them burn toward the big fire. It was hot work: sweaty black faces reflect firelight in rich tones of orange and red. Before we whipped our fire, my own face was plenty black too, and I was spitting soot for more than a day. One of the two other fires was defeated by a somewhat larger team. The third fire, set among eucalyptus (and ask me if I care whether all those darn exotics burn to cinders!) died on its own accord. Anyhow, soon-come-morning, and I had to drag my white posterior to my 0800 statistics class—thereby discovering that firefighting is not the optimal vocation for somebody with a bad back.

But let me return to my more typical daily routine. And, since I’ve already written too much about my classes, I’ll describe meals. Once a day, weekdays, I can eat in the A.U. cafeteria. This is a neat experience. Two serving lines exist; they are segregated by gender, and a sign explains that segregation: “Because of excess pushing and shoving, ladies will be in one queue and men in the other. We hope this will make the shoving more fair.” I have not noticed any shoving at all, but students do sneak into the lines, and this is sometimes greeted with disapprobation. Great mounds of food are available; it is mostly very cheap sadza or less cheap rice; expensive meat can often be had as well. (Meat servings are not enormous. For example, if “fried chicken” is on the menu, you’ll get a humorous piece if you’re lucky, a radius-ulna piece if you’re not.) For meals when I don’t hit the cafeteria, I’m on the local economy—and it’s a health-nut’s paradise! Tomatoes, bananas, onions, and greens are available ad lib., at bargain prices. I am extremely fond of sun-ripened tomatoes, so I fix a sort of gazpacho: tomatoes and onions, diced with a touch of peanut butter, a cc of fresh ginger, a teaspoon of honey, and a generous shaking of hotsauce. It’s great, for an adult American. On the other hand, for the locals, the “food issue” is more than an entertaining inconvenience. Old folks pray in vain for daily bread, and one sees far too many children with silent faces and hollow eyes.

Zimbabwe’s food shortage was on my mind when I met the most recent VIM team. This fresh-faced corps consisted of half a dozen women plus one man. All were dressed in what I’ll call “church safari,” which is probably sold by Banana Republic & allows one to meet, with equal aplomb, either pastors or pachyderms. For anybody who’d talk to them, these VIM-ers were as friendly as puppies, so I grinned, thickened my South Carolina accent, and asked why they’d come to Zimbabwe. Smiling radiantly, the leader replied, “We hope that we will be able to paint a pastor’s house.” Now Zimbabwe may lack bread and meat, but it has a couple of million unemployed citizens ready, willing, and able to paint pastors’ houses. Since the median Zimbabwean income has dropped below $1US per day, some of these local folks might paint at least part of a house for the price (about $2-$3 thousand U.S.) of an air ticket from the States.

But whom am I kidding? Let’s say that I’d set aside the money I’m spending on lab equipment this semester, and let’s say that I’d stayed in Spartanburg, drawing my Wofford salary, but willing to give it away. That kind of money, donated to UMCOR, could have fed a regiment of hungry kids—or painted half the pastors’ houses in all of Manicaland!

In other words, few of us are really smart about how to address big problems, and I know that even my more generous impulses are inextricably tied to considerations of vanity & self. (I mean, I might work a semester or two in Zimbabwe, but Richard Nixon would need ice-skates before I’d serve one volunteer-day in a biome that lacked turtles and frogs.) So, is there any good at all in my being here?

I was contemplating exactly that question during a five-hour-and-fifteen-minutes ag faculty meeting last Friday. Absorbed in considerations of self, I didn’t realize until almost too late that I was being introduced, again. Dean Tagwira, a leader of almost Maultsbian saintliness, was calling my name. “We all want to greet Professor Abercrombie and thank him….”

For what, I wondered: for computer equipment, for half-ass teaching a semi-needed class, for books about wildlife management? For what?

“…to greet Professor Abercrombie and thank him—for coming home. So, our friend, we welcome you home.”

And what is home but a house that love built? So, I do like my house very much, and I shall always be grateful to those crazy VIM-ers who built it.