“Tambu! Tambu iwe takunonoka manje,” (Tambu, we are getting late now) cried out Phineas in exasperation. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at him as I said, “Bob Marley hapana kwaarikuenda, (he is not going anywhere) he is just as excited to be here as we are excited to see him. Besides if we miss his performance today we will catch it another time, isn’t you said after independence you will take me to Jamaica,” teasing him.

Obviously I was joking there was no way I was going to miss the iconic Bob Marley’s performance today. Today was the day of all days, the day we had been waiting for. After years of illegal white colonialism we were gaining our independence. Just yesterday we watched Prince Charles’ motorcade drive down Jameson Ave. I had never been around so many white people in my life and they were waving the British flag. When I saw them wave that flag with pride, I thought to myself that will be the last time they wave that flag in our independent streets.

We are going to have a new flag with our own national colors, our national pride. That thought alone made me smile as I looked in the mirror and admired my afro. Phineas doesn’t understand this is a once in a lifetime opportunity, I might come out in the newspapers, I have to look good. How dare he rush me, I bought a new dress for this occassion.

“Haaaa Tambu amana ndakuzokusiya,” (Tambu I am going to leave you) he cried out. He knows I hates it when he says that. The last time he left me he had gone to join the Chimurenga (Revolutionary Struggle) and I had lived in constant fear wondering if I would see his face again. “Ok, OK, ndapedza kwacho,” (I am done) I said with a smile and he opened the door and we walked out into the streets of Mbare. I had never seen so many black people so happy. The streets were thronged with people chanting and dancing and wait, in the background was that Harare Mambo’s singing my favorite song, “dabhuru 9, 9, 2 10” I loved that song because I was from Buhera and Phineas always made fun of me and sang that song whenever he came home drunk. I would sulkily tell him that if he continued drinking like a fish in Kariba Dam I would leave him. He would then grab me by the waist and say “enda mainini varikuuya kubva kuBuehra, number dzepaphoni dabhuru 9, 9, 2 10” and we would just laugh it off.

We finally made our way into the stadium just in time to see Robert Mugabe’s mercedes benz pull up. I screamed so loud and I couldn’t help but admire the brass band play so gracefully. The traditional dancers dancing the mbende (Zimbabwean traditional dance) so violently you would have thought they were trying to entice the spirit of Mbuya Nehanda & Sekuru Kaguvi.

Finally the moment we had been waiting for, the Union Jack was lowered and with it the hopes and dreams of the lost white tribe of Africa as they were famously called was shattered and in its place was The Flag, Our Flag, The Zimababwean Flag. I felt so many emotions all at once, hope, love, liberation, fear, sadness for the loss of life that led to this moment. Next to me I felt Phineas fold his hands into mine, I looked up at him with a smile and the tears of joy streaming down his face triggered mine and for a second we were lost in the moment. Hugging and crying, excited about our child’s future, to be born in a New and Free Independent Zimbabwe unlike us. We were hopeful that our child would have a better life than we could have ever imagined.

Then the announcer said it, the first official words of the new nation of Zimbabwe “Ladies and Gentlemen, Bob Marley and The Wailers!”

https://qz.com/africa/1840776/bob-marley-paid-his-way-to-play-zimbabwe-independence-concert/

In that moment, I felt it, I felt what he was singing

“there’s a natural mystic blowing through the air, if you listen carefully now you will hear“

As I looked up at our flag waving to the rhythm of Bob Marley’s guitar, I could promise you. I felt the natural mystic. When he said “Viva Zimbabwe, Rastafarai” we all chanted back “Viva Zimbabwe” then he sang the song that we would play on our radios for days on end, the song that made us risk all so we could watch his concert again the next day. To be honest the only word I heard was, Zimbabwe, the only word I sang along to was Zimbabwe but when I heard these words ..

Every man gotta right to decide his own destiny,
And in this judgement there is no partiality.
So arm in arms, with arms, we’ll fight this little struggle,
‘Cause that’s the only way we can overcome our little trouble.

…despite my limited English vocabulary, I knew these words were the epitome of what we fought for.

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