On my last coins. How will I survive the next coming days/months. Interesting.

A fight broke up some days ago in one of the faculty parties. I only got to discover when it was almost over that I was somehow a catalyst, or rather the spark that started it.
One guy, who is in my year came to me (might I add that he was totally drunk by this time) and said some mumbo jumbo to me in Polish. The girl I was talking to became absolutely animated and started arguing with this guy. Since I couldn’t understand a word they were saying I excused myself and went to the next room.
It turns out that this guy had said something that was interpreted as being racist by the girl, thus the reason for the argument. Now, the boyfriend of the girl joined the argument and was pissed of that guy number 1 was arguing with his gf. Well, things turned nasty from then on. Guy #1 called guy #2 some names connected with his race and a fist fight was the result. Police were called and tempers flared and all sorts of other things happened.
My rant
I have been trying for quite some time to understand this race issue since I came to Poland. I mention since I came to Poland because when I was in Zimbabwe this was a non-issue for me. It’s difficult for me to take offence at things that people usually take to be racist remarks because I’ve never learnt to primarily identify myself as a particular race. It’s not that I’m not aware of my race, but usually I’m more aware of me being me. When I’m in a particular situation, I assume that people see me as the way I view myself- as Lungile and not as ‘that black girl’ or ‘Lungile who is black’.
Of course that’s somehow not really how things are in reality; which makes me understand why Afro-Americans are so sensitive when it comes to race issues. When I spent a few months in the US, I was really surprised by how much time and energy was spent by Afro-Americans discussing issues related with race. Once, a few of these acquaintances of mine decided not to go for a function organised by the students’ government, that is mainly white, because they (students gov) had sent an email that described the event organised as a picnic. According to my acquaintances, picnic was a word which was almost synonymous to lynching and they felt really threatened by the use of it.
I initially thought this was a lot of bullocks, but I think I somehow understand them in relation to me. They have lived in an environment where their race has been salient in a negative way. Obviously that would make them interpret things from I-am-black-person-and-that-is-why-you-are-doing-this-to-me perspective rather than anything else. I wonder if my 5 years in Poland are slowly turning me to that.
Oh, and I’m sincerely thinking of breaking my friendship ties with guy #1. Not so much because of the fist fight* (although I think that’s also quite despicable) but more because of the terrible terrible things he said to guy #2. I’ve always known that he has some radical thoughts but somehow I had also convinced myself that he really doesn’t believe in most of the things that he says. I’m beginning to doubt my assumptions about him.
*and I can’t understand people who become violent when they are drunk.

Respite

When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust--
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
(Now am I free to be poetical?)
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows--
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

--Robert Frost, 1915

I remember

I remember on the 10th of August 1996, the closing date of the 3rd term in my secondary boarding school. I was relieved to finally be going back home. I got a call from the headmistress’ office that I was to take the school bus going to Bulawayo and not Plumtree as I usually did. No explanation was given as to why.
I remember arriving at our Bulawayo house. It was crowded with people, most of them strangers I had never met before. I tried to look for a face I could recognise. I saw our housekeeper passing by and went to her immediately. I inquired of the meaning of the crowd and got a vague answer. I went into the house and saw my mother, a crowd away from me. I couldn’t reach her and I tried to wave at her. I finally did meet her and she could not tell me what was happening. She asked about school and gave me some money to go and give to Senziwe (our housekeeper) to buy some clothes for me. I was still in my school uniform and all of my clothes were in Plumtree.
I remember going to the adjacent bedroom and falling into bed. I knew something was wrong. My mother had hugged me more tightly than normal; she looked extremely tired and weary. I remember lying on that bed, trying to block out all the sound from outside till I fell asleep. I was woken by the screeching of tires outside the house. I can still hear that terrible terrible sound. A few moments later, I distinctly remember hearing people crying from the lounge.
I remember walking into the lounge and seeing my mother weeping like a baby. I couldn’t reach her. It seemed everyone was in their own world and that I was somehow invisible. I walked back to the bedroom and Senziwe, who had somehow seen me, came in as well. I started crying then, I’m not sure why but I could not stop. She just hugged me and whispered sweet nothings to me.
I remember the next day. The house was swarmed by people. One lady told Senziwe to take the children away. I was one of the children who was supposed to be taken away (I was 13 and by my definition no longer a child). We were taken to the lady’s house, some few minutes’ drive from our own house. I wanted to see my mother. Everyone was crowding around my mother. My sisters were not yet there. I wanted to see them!
I remember sitting at this lady’s house with my cousin brother. We didn’t talk much. Just set there with the tv on. We were there for days or weeks, I cannot remember. What I remember though is that they took my father, went and buried him, without me being there.
I remember thinking that it was perhaps because it was my fault. A few months back, my mother had reproached me that I should not wear one shoe without the other. Apparently, according to a local myth, if one does that, one of your parents will die. I remember chuckling at this and continuing wearing the shoe. As I sat with my cousin brother, I started thinking that perhaps my mother’s myth was right. I had killed my father! That is why nobody wanted me to attend the funeral.
The guilt subsided with time but for quite a while I could not face my mother.
I remember going back to school, like nothing ever happened. It was a ball games’ season. I was pretty good at netball and I concentrated on that. I went to practice more than enough times. Schools closed I went back home to Plumtree. I went into my mother’s bedroom and found her lying on the bed. She was crying. I remember the feeling then. I could not bear to see her cry. I wanted to stop her and I didn’t know how.
Recently, I wanted to ask her and my siblings why they all left me in Bulawayo when they took my father to Plumtree. I wanted to, I really did want to. Yet I didn’t. Perhaps I realised I was wallowing in self-pity. It was a painful memory not just for me, but for everyone else. Perhaps writing this down will help me forget about it. After all, they say it subsides with time. How much more time do I need?