The Wave Index: Facing Outward

We are motoring along the Zimbabwe highway, right at the 80 kmh max for our big yellow rig and i have been partaking of my favorite daily ritual during our drive days; facing outward, which consists of kneeling on the benchseats backwards so one's torso is facing out of the open walls of the truck. Facing outward is a prime way to take in the view and wave to the people we speed pass. I like to get in at least a couple of hours of facing outward per drive day, minimum, and it is impossible for me to say which i prefer, views or people.

Cruising down the highway near Zim/Mozambique border

For the former, the views are pretty and/or interesting, and usually both. Seeing the subtle changes in climate and topography has led to an appreciation of the grand scale of this trek and the variance throughout the countryside. The wind is pleasant, its cooling powers mix well with the strength of the sun. Right now, we are heading towards the Zimbabwe Eastern Highlands, a mile+ above sea level and have been motoring past little villages, well cultivated farms and a ton of boulder formations with multi-ton rocks stacked beguiling on top of each other.

Eastern Highlands in Zim

On the people side, few things bring such simple pleasure as waving to a group of children and hearing their squeals of delight, as they jump up and down frantically and wave emphatically with both arms. Even as we speed through, that shared moment always brings a sense of connection and happiness. Have also perfected the ubiquitous thumbs up gesture for connecting with my peer group, youngish males. The key is to do the thumbs up to the side as opposed to straight up and down, the difference is subtle but the straight up brand you as a shmuck (Mu disagrees and goes with the straight up).

Facing outward allows for prolonged moments of reflection, memory and have brought about some of the longest sustained periods of pleasure in the month we have been traveling around here.

The Wave Index

Here in Zimbabwe, the frequency of returned waves and gestures has dropped off precipitously. My initial hypothesis had this tied to wealth, as the countryside rolling by is wealthier than in Mozambique, Tanzania and especially Malawi. This is a bit of surprise, as the life expectancy is actually lower here than many of those countries, coming in at just 44, and the economy cataclysmicaily imploded due to inflation only in 2008. Still, the houses are more frequently made of brick with corrugated roofs. Even those houses made from mud with thatched roofs are much less likely to be in disrepair than the countries we traveled through over the last several weeks. Then, we got to Harare and I stumbled upon a different reason, one more troubling. I now think that the lack of returned waves and thumb ups are actually stemming from latent, and justified, hostility towards white people.

Hence i created the 'wave index' in my mind, which is the ratio of returned gestures of connection divided by the total number of attempts. In Malawi the wave index was in the 80 percentile, and here in Zim we are down in the twenties. Tanzania also scored highly on the index.




'Mzunga!' vs Bubble of Silence

Beyond the highly unscientific wave index, the actual experience of being in Zim versus our previous countries has been different. When walking around the countryside or cities perviously, there was a constant refrain of 'Mzunga, Mzunga!', roughly translated to white person. The Mzunga refrain was constant across three countries and numerous languages. Here in Zim, that has stopped completely, replaced very infrequently by 'Boss' but usually just a stony silence. Neither of these reactions are indifferent, though the cone of silence has the practiced air of a high schooler ignoring his crush at a party.

Even though the constant cries of Mzunga can get annoying (yes, i know i am a white person, but thanks for reminding me), i vastly prefer them to the bubble of silence that has been the norm here in Zim. To me, Mzunga at least places everyone in the same social environment. There are inherent, and felt, inequalities/asymmetries, but the cries of children, touts and everyone else is in stark contrast to the bubble of simmering silence that has been more de rigor in Zim. To me, this silence demonstrates the complete stratification of the social strata, a division that is manifest in both race and wealth.

Zimbabwe has a very troubled, and complicated, history of race based policy. The country used to be called Rhodesia, named after a British founder, Cecil Rhodes, of the colonial British South African Company, who procured the lucrative mineral rights in the entire country in 1888 for 10,000 rifles, 100,000 rounds of ammo, a gunboat and one hundred pounds Sterling a month. Sweet deal, similar to those 'deals' between the US government and the Native Americans. By 1895 a white-only legislature was in effect and in 1930 white dominance was codified with land and labor laws. This exclusion carried forward to colonial independence in 1964, when the white leaders of the country disregarded request for racial equality and majority rule as provisions of statehood, rather declaring independence unilaterally to preserve the status quo.

These polices have had an extraordinarily long tail, with wealth and power still disproportionally concentrated in the hands of white Zimbabweans decades after later. The numbers are very low, less than 1% of the total population but they own a greatly outsized ratio of the capital. We have heard more casual racism in the last 4-5 days than all of our travels put together. These have made it a bit unsettling, although it is certainly debatable whether there is any material difference between a bubble of silence and the cries of Mzunga.

We are very curious to see whether these initial impressions of race relations in Zim hold true throughout the rest of the country. Already, we have seen the wave index tick up as we get away from the capital and largest city. It will also be facisintating to consider these issues as we move on to Botswana, Namibia and South Africa, where there are obviously troubling historical race histories as well.