It is Saturday in Harare, the first weekend of my August holiday. I make my way to Avondale, where I want to spend the morning before heading to Parirenyatwa Hospital. Avondale is a middle-class suburb with happy memories for me. Up the road, in Mount Pleasant, is the University of Zimbabwe, scene of my first adventures out of school. It is also home to one of the largest flea markets in Harare, and it is there that I head.
One of my cousins has a stall at the market. I say his given name to the traders, but am met with baffled faces. I describe him, and comprehension dawns. “You mean Monya,” a craftsman with a missing front tooth says. I stop to admire his work, an intricate model of a Harley-Davidson with thin wire for the body and black plastic sheeting for the wheels. “Yours for seven million dollars,” he says. “Monya” is a Shona slang term for a muscleman—apposite for my cousin, who has had jobs as a nightclub bouncer and bodyguard to a government’s minister’s children. “I am looking for Mhonya,” I say to two women seated at what I assume is his stall. “He has only stepped away for a moment,” one of them says. I leave a message and wander around the market.
I walk past stalls selling cheap clothing, shoes made of plastic, garish toys and glittering knick-knacks from Dubai and China and Singapore. I am attracted by a child’s cricket set. I have a vision of my three-year-old son, Kush, coming out to bat for Zimbabwe. But even after haggling a little with Greg, the stall owner, I do not have enough money to buy it. “I will return tomorrow,” I tell him.
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