newzimbabwe.com
Last updated: 11/24/2005 03:16:02
WHEN the plane touches down at Harare Airport, fear abounds. The earth opens up and vomits new gods. The new gods vomit evil. The evil vomits the new scriptures as written by Mugabe for Mugabe at Mugabe's behest.
The worms of killing poverty wriggle aimlessly about. The flies of filth buzz with disease. The silence of starvation, the shame of poverty, the scum of the society, the signs of peril and the signature of pain are all embodied in the cauldron of pain.
Landing in Mugabe's Harare Airport was like coming to terms with a life-long internal struggle. There was not much in pomp and ceremony. There was no red carpet and there was no guard of honour mounted by some half-sickly and half-drunk presidential guards. There was no ululating from crazed up Zanu PF women's league whose exclusive membership type is gorgon's or amazons who are obscenely led by Shuvai Mahofa and company.
There was no long queue of dignitaries waiting to shake hands and exchange some insignificant hugs and perks on the cheek. Perhaps that saved me from enduring the foul garlic-like dragon breath induced by cheap brew and unattended halitosis. My arrival did not warrant Mugabe's very important people to meet me at the airport that seemed to be more of a emergency landing strip somewhere in the Sahara.
My dearly beloved Phil was not there too. I failed to understand why a man who had done everything humanly possible on a lady like me would let me down at this eerie moment of dire need. Perhaps Phil wanted to be the knight in shinning armour. May be he wanted to use his political clout and financial prowess at the crucial point.
Then it was like fulfilling an appointment with fate!
The impression will last my lifetime and the lifetimes of my children, their children and perhaps my children's children's children!
It was Big Brother then; now it appears to be a Big Bother!
Perhaps I will start from the beginning. Officials from the Home Office unceremoniously bungled me into an Air Zimbabwe plane at Gatwick Airport. The airworthiness of this plane was suspicious and below my celebrity status standards. The officials told me to 'go have fun in sunny Harare'. Another official, with typical British humour, asked if I was going to 'bare those infamous plums at ZTV's obscure Big Brother'. The parting shot from one of the officials as he made sure I was not going to cause any scenes at the airport was that I go and have fun with Phil.
Initially, the treatment I got on touch down at Harare Airport was that of indifference. I had three guards who were almost mute!
The guards allocated to me were mean and did not utter a single word to hint whether I was in serious trouble or whether in Mugabe's eyes I was a hero who had 'portrayed herself as a fearless fighter, who had defeated the Britons in their game of nudity, vulgarity and obscenity'. I could only wait patiently for my fate.
As I marched towards the immigration desk flanked by three hefty members of Mugabe's security people, I thought of what I had done back 'home'. I thought of the long shifts at the NHS hospitals. I thought of the 'partying until you could not party' parties. I thought of the power of the Pound. Above all, I thought of my moments of fame in the British Big Brother! Man, I made my mark!
I handed over my passport to the curious immigration official; a lady in her late twenties perhaps but looked to over-fed to be anything less than forty. The grilling started.
Makosi Musambasi! How was your stay in the United Kingdom?
I think I enjoyed most of it.
Then why are you back to Zimbabwe?
I have been deported by the Britons.
How sad! Why were you deported?
I breached some obscure stipulation in my contract with my employer.
What did you do?
I took a second employment which naturally breached my work-permit conditions.
What second job did you take up then Makosi?
I successfully auditioned as a Big Brother house mate.
Are people in the UK not allowed to appear on television when they have work permits?
I do not know.
Tell me what really happened Makosi. We hear from rumour that there was some lady who did things that are punishable by death by stoning in Mbare. Could you have been the shameless lady?
I ....I ...I was only an innocent house-mate!
Did you not kiss another woman in front of the cameras? Did you not have a shameless and unprotected sexual intercourse with a naive Briton in the swimming pool? Did you not claim that we will kill you when you came back to Zimbabwe? Did you not accuse our very government that offered you excellent education of tyranny? Did you not seek and fail to obtain asylum in the UK because you had serious reservations about coming back to Zimbabwe? Did you not ridicule the office and person of His Excellence the President of the Democratic Republic of Zimbabwe? Did you not make us small devils with very large tridents? Now Makosi; give me answers to all those questions!
What sane human being would respond to those allegations in front of Mugabe's own hang-men? I could not say a word. If I said anything then I did not hear myself say it. If I heard myself say anything; then what I had heard was nothing; for I heard nothing, said nothing and thought nothing. I believe may sphincter muscles are in great shape! For a moment, I felt I needed to pass solids and liquids, somehow I managed to hold myself together. I might have lost my pride in this interview by this shapeless ugly woman, but I think I held my esteem intact as I defied nature's response to such satanic stimulus.
Honestly, I do not know what happened to me. The next time I remember seeing myself in a filthy room with several desperate women. I was in great pain. My rather huge jaw was not moving as freely as it usually does. I realised that I had a partial maxillary fracture due to some impact consistent with assault with a riffle butt.
The women in the dirty room were very caring. They told me that we were in a prison cell. The majority of them belonged to some organisation known as WOZA whose ideals I did not understand. They told me that they had been arrested for cleaning the streets of the city center as a group. They were jubilant and very supportive of each other.
WOZA, the women who were glad to be in a prison cell! Makosi, the celebrity who would want to get out of Mugabe's prison!
Someone had to get me out of that dump. Perhaps I needed to shout at the top of my voice that 'I am a celebrity get me out of here!' The jaw could not let me scream as loud. The WOZA women drowned whatever my jaws could allow me to shout by their boisterous singing. I was doomed. Perhaps the time for a knight in shinning armour was nigh!
Deja vu; fate; destiny; omen; call it whatever, Phil came to my rescue. He did not come to the prison cell with the clunks and clicks of the shinning armour. He came stealthily; unseen and unheard. The power of the Zimbabwean Dollar was put to test. One side was Phillip Chiyangwa's zillions and on the other were the empty pockets of the prison officers. In a short space of time, Chiyangwa's zillions were all settling comfortably in the pockets of the prison staff.
I was literally given the keys to break out of jail. At every step of my jail break were prison staff put there strategically to cover my tracks. Before it was dawn, I had escaped from Zimbabwe's prison, jumped the border into South Africa, got a South African passport and my flight to London that evening had been confirmed.
I landed at Heathrow Airport and everything became the normal I am used to.
Guess what, Phillip Chiyangwa was the first to call me soon after landing at Heathrow. He wanted to know when he could come over to consummate the marriage which had been made possible by his use of his financial might. I do not want to have anything to do with Phillip Chiyangwa. The idea of him using his monies on me was not to buy love from me; or was it?
Note: I am now a fully recognised refugee in the UK.
