Helen (51) came to America a year ago to take care of her granddaughter. Before the year was out, her daughter had placed her with friends.

Rufaro(53) has called America home for five years. She came to take care of her granddaughter while her daughter finished her degree. She never left.

These are their stories:

Helen

The once beautifully designed home that belonged to Helen’s daughter was bare when this reporter first entered it. Helen could barely hold back her fear, frustration and grief. What was happening to her was beyond her comprehension. When this journalist met her, she was distraught, close to tears. She could barely hold them back as she stared bewilderingly into empty space. The once very vivacious and useful teacher from Zimbabwe didn’t know what was happening to her.

She said it. “I am afraid. I am afraid of new places and new situations.”

She waved around the rubble of the three bed roomed house. She had been packing all day. The living room was strewn with trash. She kept shaking her head. She was supposed to leave the next morning to go and live with her daughter’s friend.

In a wobbly voice, she said, “I am supposed to stay with my granddaughter until school is over for the year. And then we will go and join my daughter and her new boyfriend.”

The school year in America ends in June.

Helen is in shock. She can’t understand why her daughter chose to discard her like yesterday’s news. She didn’t want to say it, but it was there, in every action she took. Her daughter called her frequently with updates on the move. 

Helen was going to stay with her daughter’s friend who had two children. The friend and her husband and their children lived in a two-bedroom apartment. Helen and her granddaughter would be sleeping in the living room until June.

America is new to Helen. Although she is a degreed adult female, she has not yet grasped the workings of the nation. She won’t say it, but she wants to yell it out to the world. Her daughter was not honouring her. Her daughter was not putting her welfare first. Her future was uncertain. She had no idea what would happen to her after June. She had her doubts that her daughter’s boyfriend would let her live with them.

She has no papers and no money of her own. She is totally at her daughter’s mercy. Her daughter is not thinking of her welfare. She wants out of the deal.

 And so we talked about Robert Mugabe and how he should now leave power for the younger generation. What else could she talk about? She didn’t want to criticize her daughter.

Rufaro

Rufaro is a woman to be reckoned with. The former Harare businesswoman is a go-getter. She was no stranger to the United States when she came to settle with her daughter five years ago.

“I used to come and work for six months and then go back home. Those were the wonderful times. I had the money of the United States and my country, home and friends.” She said from her apartment in Woburn, which she shares with her seventeen-year-old son.

Rufaro stayed in America permanently to help her daughter raise her young family.

“My daughter needed me. She was doing her degree and starting her family. My son and I lived with them for several months.”

After her daughter was on her feet, this grandmother, at 47 struck out on her own. She found herself a job, an apartment and moved out. She admitted that although living with her daughter was very nice, she wanted her independence.

To see Rufaro is to believe she came to the United States in her twenties. She holds down two jobs and works more than 80 hours a week.  As much as she misses Zimbabwe, she believes America has revitalized her.

“The problem with people at home is that they write you off. Once you are a grandmother, they say you are old. My daughter who is at home talks to me as if she is talking to a geriatric. She doesn’t realize that I am living just like the 25 year olds and doing even better. When she talks to me, she is condescending because she made me a grandmother of three boys. I can’t get her to understand that I have a great life ahead of me and that there are so many opportunities to be explored. Zimbabwe writes you off,” she said.

Rufaro has built two gigantic homes in Zimbabwe in the past five years. But, it is not enough for her. She still has a lot more to achieve before she can go home.

The thought of living with her daughter and her husband permanently never entered her mind. Rufaro valued her independence. “Now, I give my daughter permission to bring her children or not. When I am tired, I won’t babysit for her. When I am not tired, I will help her. I like my independence.”

Rufaro is no stranger to declaring her independence. She divorced her husband because he oppressed her. For a Zimbabwean woman, that was a very unusual thing and because of it, society ostracized her.

“My ex husband oppressed me! He didn’t want me to work, and so I got a job and told him after I got it. He didn’t want me to have braids in my hair or do what I wanted. He kept saying that was what “mahure” (whores) did. So, one day, I divorced him. I don’t want to be oppressed.” She said vehemently.

If Rufaro has any regrets about living in the United States, it is that Zimbabwean women are not as driven and as open-minded as American women.

“Zimbabwean women are happy for men to own everything. They are happy to be oppressed. They don’t like themselves as women. They hate being women and that is so sad. Over here, it is different. Women are different. I love it here.” She said.

Although Rufaro plans to go home in the future, it is not right now. She has finally found a place in the world where she belongs. The United States of America.

end.