Tea with Lucy...

Last Sunday we had a woman ring the buzzer on our gate. Jon went out to greet her and found that she was selling some needlework. He came back inside and asked if I’d mind going out to speak with her instead. As I walked out she started unpacking some things from her colorful large plastic bag: there were several table runners and some mesh squares with beadwork running down the edges (to keep flies out of food). Lucy was her name. She looked very tired so I asked if I could bring her some water or if she would rather have some tea. Immediately she perked up and readily agreed to come inside. I held Wilbur as she walked across the yard and into our house.

As we sat around our kitchen table sipping our tea and eating biscuits I learned that she was from Zimbabwe, trying to earn some money to send back home. I have heard that Zimbabweans frequently come by selling crafts and looking for piecework, but as we don’t usually get home until after dark we don’t see them as much as people who are home during the day. For those of you who keep up with world affairs you know that Zimbabwe recently held elections that have been fraught with controversy. Mugabe, the long-term dictator, has made many poor decisions on behalf of the country and over the past six months the situation has gone from bad to worse: store shelves are empty, violence and fear are rife, food is impossible to come by (even if a person has money), and inflation is so high that money earned one day is worthless the next. The refugee population here in Gaborone has been steadily increasing over the past year and the Botswanan government is gearing up for it to get worse before it gets better.

Lucy at our kitchen table having tea

Lucy is here in Gaborone on a 30 day visa, trying to earn enough money so she can buy supplies to take back to Zimbabwe with her. Her husband passed away several years ago and back home she has five children, living on their own while their mom is away. Every other week she goes to the bus rank in Gaborone with the food supplies she has been able to accumulate to send back with the bus driver to be dropped in Harare (the capitol) for her children to pick up. The bus driver charges 250-300 pula (almost $50) for this service. She said that so far she has been blessed with enough piecework (people who will let her clean their house, wash their car, do their laundry) so that her children are getting enough food. She said that just last week the school her children attend was closed for the rest of the week because they had too many children fainting in classes from hunger.

She shared her story with so much grace and dignity; it is hard to watch such a proud person bowed so low, so desperate. She begged us to pray for Zimbabwe, to remember those in her country struggling to survive. I bought a hand-stitched table runner and some crocheted angels from her for $18. We prayed together and I sent her off with some biscuits and oranges, I felt so helpless.

I have been reading a book that has some images and poetry that I have found comforting. Here is a snippet:

Show me how you offer to your people and the world
the stories and the songs you want our children’s children to remember,
and I will show you how I struggle,
not to change the world, but to love it.

I want to live so that my life reflects the God I know. How we live our lives is the story we chose to tell for our children’s children to remember, reflects what we know of the Beloved, of that which is sacred. How you do what you do offers stories of hope or despair, of compassion or judgment, of presence or absence. All I have is that which is in front of me.

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An end note: When we came to visit Botswana in February that was the first time I really saw how hard life was for Zimbabweans here. One day while staying at Mark and Deb’s house a police truck pulled up and they dragged a man out of the back in shackles - he was from Zimbabwe and had over-stayed his visa. As most Zimbabweans staying in Gaborone squat in unfinished houses – they have no place safe to store their things. Moses, the man in shackles, had been storing things in Mark and Deb’s house and he actually succeeded in convincing the police to let him pick them up before he was deported. It was heartbreaking to see someone just trying to survive treated so poorly. Deb has written a series of stories about Moses and the lives of a few other Zimbabweans that they are in close contact with called ‘How Moses Crossed the Red Sea’. If you are interested in reading her stories you can find them at http://www.mosesandtheredsea.blogspot.com