I held a girl in my arms. A beautiful little girl called Chido (meaning “gift” or “talent”). She was an orphan living in a home, with no family except those who had taken her in.
Yet she smiled and laughed and showed me where she played, ate and slept. And when I held up the camera for a photo, she smiled without being asked, smiled what I think was the most beautiful smile I have seen in a long time. It was innocent and joyful, carefree about the weight and strains of life and not bothered by any label the world might give her.
I was in Harare for a community projects meeting held by the British Council’s Global Changemakers programme and, throughout the five days, amazing as they were, Chido’s gorgeous smile was one of the many beautiful images I took away with me. The name “Global Changemakers” sounds lofty and intimidating, but it is simply an international network of young people who are working to improve the lives of their communities.
I met a young Malawian girl who started a group that volunteers at her local orphanage, teaching and playing with its youngsters. I also met a Ugandan, Moses, who started what has become a national campaign to stop the spread of HIV/ Aids in his country, a programme aptly called “Youth Crack HIV in Schools”.
Some Changemakers, like me, write about the communities we live in and others dance as a means of bringing social change. We are a motley group, but we are all bound by a common goal: to change the world step by step.
My other Oprah moment in Zimbabwe was an address by the deputy prime minister. I wasn’t the only one who expected a long speech filled with rhetoric and I wasn’t the only one who was surprised when Arthur Mutambara sat down and said: “You [the youth] are not the leaders of tomorrow, don’t let anyone lie to you. You are the leaders of today.”
The words seemed to float in the air for a moment before they came pounding into our minds. They went against the centuries-old African and Victorian adage that children are meant to be seen and not heard. It made me want to jump up and say “Amen!”, but more than anything it reminded me of the importance of every single person in nation-building.
Home and hearth are just as important as the buildings of Parliament. It was also poignant for me as a Zimbabwean, filling me with hope that if there are such forward-thinkers in the government, the path to recovery cannot be too far away. There are times when it is a bit embarrassing to admit that I’m Zimbabwean.
As if Mutambara had read my thoughts, he said: “You will never be respected as a person if your country and your continent are not respected.” It was one of those epiphanies you read about in novels. All those issues I have lived through: cholera, hunger, inflation, came flooding back and I smiled.
We all did, the Zimbabweans a bit more than the others. It wasn’t all serious, though. We went canoeing, were taken on a game drive and took part in a number of team-building exercises. We even got to do a presentation on Zimbabwe. I could tell as I stood in front of the group of South Africans, Sudanese, Malawians, Tanzanians and all the assorted flavours of Africa that they had never quite understood the other side of the country, the reason why we were once called “Africa’s paradise”.
Sometimes, I suspect, even Zimbabweans need to be reminded of it. Reminded of the beauty that once was and still is, the open nature of its people and the loving welcome we give to visitors. But those five days held a bigger lesson for us all. The lesson that our voice counts and that the diff erence we are making in our countries, small as it may sometimes seem, is the winds of change that need to sweep through our continent and bring it to a new era. Which all brings me back to Chido.
The world is a place she cannot yet contribute to. It is a noisy room fi lled with competing voices, each crying for their share of the pie. And if people like me, ordinary people, didn’t watch out for her, didn’t speak for the voiceless, then she would never have been able to give me that extraordinary smile that cracked my heart.
Bongani Ncube is a Zimbabwean who is studying computer science in Algiers