The first in a compendium of six recent plays written by women, this one mainly takes the form of a series of letters from children, the headmaster of a local school in Zimbabwe, and his wife to a woman who met one of the kids while on holiday there and (in the eyes of her daughter) is having a "midlife crisis" in making plans to return as a teaching assistant. Through the eyes of both the locals, and the wealthy and deeply sympathetic woman who becomes their benefactor, the story of life under Mugabe unfolds, and one by one the letters begin to talk about friends who are lost to illness or under circumstances where the government is implicated. Eventually the headmaster is killed explicitly for his anti-government beliefs, and we're told that the woman continued to teach at the school after his death.
When I was growing up, I didn't take a lot of interest in world current events. A newspaper was something for grownups - I was interested in fiction, particularly fantasy, and the snippets of information that filtered through to me when I accidently saw parts of a news program on television, or saw the older girls handing out badges for some overseas cause or other scared me away. I can't help feeling a little bit like I should know more about the background to the play than I do, and I certainly feel like I come away from the reading with more of an understanding than I had before. When I was seventeen I visited Tanzania for a month with a group from school, a trip that included a week working with a Masaai tribe. While I was out there we did get to briefly see their local school, which I think gives me a bit of context for the play - it is a different country and a different set of circumstances, but as an image to keep in mind it's probably closer than imagining any school I've ever been to.
The daughter's protests that her mother won't be able to get her home comforts if she goes out to Zimbabwe struck me as equally funny and deeply sad. It has been my experience in travelling to a whole range of places in various states of development that it is always easiest to let the place tell you how to respond. The friends I went out to Tanzania with will probably all agree, on returning we were all craving hot baths, bacon, a bed without a sleeping bag, water that didn't need iodine added to it... but I don't think I really noticed missing those things while I was out there. There were so many other experiences, and simply a different way of life, that pining for those creature comforts wasn't so much inappropriate as just something that didn't occur to me. I'm not sure everyone I was with would agree with that second part, and I suspect that the sentiment in the play that it's crazy to think you could just live without everything you take for granted every day is one that a lot of people would find themselves nodding along to. And that, I find sad.
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