Flights, Writing, and the Chinese Question in Africa
When I started writing this post, I intended to talk about how bad I felt about having missed the Zimbabwe International Book Fair, but as the piece developed, it morphed into other areas: it got stuck, like I was, in Nairobi, revealed some Kenya Airways passengers' discussion of the Chinese presence in Africa, and it touched on what I imagined would be the nature of my arrival in Harare, and how long I would stay there before proceeding to Zvishavane. I had also thought I would find time to travel to other places: Chimanimani, for the Arts festival; Chiredzi, to visit a family friend; Chivi, to visit the place they say I was born; Bulawayo, to see Sizinda, a place in Tshabalala, which is the setting of one of my stories; and Mozambique, for reasons I am not yet qualified to write about on this blog. But when I arrived, I would discover that I didn't have that much time to be dreaming about visiting these places, and that I should have known this, that whe...