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  • In America
  • NoViolet Bulawayo (bio)

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And when they asked us where we were from we exchanged glances and smiled with the shyness of child brides. They said, Africa? We nodded yes. What part of Africa? We smiled. Is it that part where vultures wait for famished children to die? We smiled. Where Angelina Jolie got that poor baby girl? We smiled. Where the life expectancy is thirty five years? We smiled. Is it there, where dissidents shove AK47s between women’s legs? We smiled. Where people run about naked? We smiled. That part where they massacred each other? We smiled. Is it where the old president rigged the election and people were tortured and killed and a whole bunch of them put in prison and all, there, where they are dying of cholera—oh my god, you’re from Zimbabwe? It’s been on the news.

And when Zimbabwe tumbled from their lips like crushed bricks, we exchanged glances again and the water in our eyes broke. Our smiles melted like dying shadows and we wept; wept for our blessed, wretched country. We wept and wept and they pitied us and said, it’s okay—it’s okay, you are in America now, and still we wept and wept and wept and they gave us soft little thingies and said, here is some Kleenex, here, and we took the soft thingies and put them in our pockets to look at later and we wept still, wept like widows, wept like orphans.

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In America we saw more food than we had seen in all our lives and we were so happy we rummaged through the dustbins of our souls to retrieve the stained, broken pieces of God. We had flung him in there way back when we were still in our own country, flung him during desperate, desperate moments when we were dizzy with hunger, our fields barren, our stores empty, our granaries and cupboards empty, our pots empty, our stomachs full of air and water, our unanswered prayers lined up like an army of ants, and we thought, How come He will not pity us, how come? Thought, Why does He not hear us, why? Thought, How come we ask and ask and ask and still are not given even a morsel, how come? And blind with rage we flung him away and said, Better no God, better no God than live like this, praying like this for things that will never come. Better no God.

But then when we got to America and saw all that food, we held our breath and thought, Wait, there must be a God. So happy and grateful, we found His discarded pieces and put [End Page 730] them together with crazy glue bought at the dollar store for only ninety nine cents and said, In God We Trust too, now In God We Trust for real, and began praying again. At McDonalds we devoured Big Macs and wolfed down fries and guzzled super-sized cokes. At Burger King we worshipped whoppers. At KFC we mauled bucket chicken. We went to Chinese buffets and ate all we could inhale—fried rice, chicken, beef, shrimp and as for the things whose names we could not read, we simply pointed to and said, we want that.

In America we ate like pigs, like wolves, like dignitaries, we ate like vultures, like stray dogs, like monsters, we ate like kings. We ate for all our past hunger, for our parents and brothers and sisters and relatives and friends who were still back there. We uttered their names between mouthfuls, conjured up their hungry faces and chapped lips—eating for those who could not be with us to eat for themselves. And when we were full we carried our dense bodies with the dignity of elephants—if only our country could see us in America, see us eat like kings in a land that was not ours.

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America surprised us at first. If you were not happy with your body you could go to a doctor for instance and say: doctor, I was born in the wrong body, make me right, doctor, I don’t...

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