This memoir delves into the often harsh realities of growing up as a white girl, Alexandra (Bobo), and her sister, Van, on African farms during the 1970s and 1980s. Far from a privileged expatriate existence, their childhood was marked by their parents’ struggles with land redistribution, resulting in a nomadic life managing farms in often perilous environments. Amidst personal bereavements and struggles with alcohol, the narrative, though tinged with hardship, maintains a surprisingly light and engaging tone. Told through a child’s perceptive yet sometimes rambling perspective, predominantly in the present tense, the memoir offers an endearing, albeit sometimes unclear in sequence, glimpse into troubled lives and times, concluding with a gentle fizzle rather than a dramatic end.
Endemic Danger and Childhood Acclimation
The narrative immediately immerses the reader in a world where danger is a daily, normalized presence. A stark early anecdote reveals parents telling their child, “Mum says, ‘Don’t come creeping into our room at night.’ They sleep with loaded guns beside them… ‘Why not?’ ‘We might shoot you.'” By the age of five, children are instructed in firearm use and the necessity of shooting to kill. This pervasive sense of quotidian danger is woven throughout the memoir. Even seemingly practical measures, like the purchase of a mine-proofed Land Rover with a siren intended to deter terrorists, are humorously revealed to be primarily used for announcing arrivals at parties. The casual hostility of armed officials at airports further underscores the ever-present tension.
Navigating Identity and Belonging
The Fuller family, though white and aspiring to an upper-middle-class status, is perpetually in debt, a fact that starkly contrasts with their emphasis on “breeding” over wealth. Their financial precarity often leads to living in dilapidated homes lacking basic amenities. Bobo, having been born in Britain but spending most of her childhood in Africa, feels adrift between two worlds. At a diverse primary school, she is singled out with questions like “Where are you from originally?”, highlighting her perceived foreignness despite her physical presence. Later, at a predominantly white school that begins admitting African children, she experiences the sting of exclusion, understanding the Shona language spoken by her peers. Her awareness of her family’s distinct physical features—pale skin and blonde hair contrasting with thick lips—further complicates her sense of self.
Encounters with Race and Prejudice
A sensitive aspect of the memoir is its frank portrayal of race relations and language used by white Rhodesians towards Africans. However, the narrative suggests this is a reflection of the era’s norms, where casual and sometimes benevolent racism was commonplace. Young Bobo’s reactions, such as her resistance to punishment by saying “Then I’ll fire you,” and her expressed disgust at using a cup potentially used by an African, are presented as learned behaviors rather than inherent prejudice. As she matures, her questioning nature suggests a move away from racist ideologies. The memoir argues that an honest depiction of the past, even if uncomfortable, is crucial, though the inclusion of specific derogatory terms might be debatable. While the author’s mother expresses a desire for a white-run African country, Bobo, as a child, is not expected to challenge such views.
In defense of her parents, they are depicted as treating their African staff with a degree of kindness, offering free first aid despite their financial struggles. The family’s precarious financial situation is evident in their need to pawn jewelry annually for seeds, with any potential return hinging on a good harvest. The observation, “When our tobacco sells well, we are rich for a day,” encapsulates their fleeting prosperity.
A particularly poignant passage contrasts the manicured European settlements with the stark reality of Tribal Trust Lands. The former are described with “flowering shrubs and trees… planted at picturesque intervals,” neat fields, and “placidly grazing cattle.” In contrast, the tribal lands are depicted as barren, worn by erosion, with school buildings resembling war-damaged structures and huts offering little shelter. The stark imagery of children and animals scratching in the red soil as the family drives through “their open, eroding lives” speaks volumes and suggests the author is not a racist but a keen observer of profound inequalities.
Navigating Depression, Trauma, and Alcoholism
Despite the dark episodes, including deaths, the memoir itself avoids being overwhelmingly depressing. The narrator employs a degree of humor, even in describing her mother’s drunken behavior in front of guests. More troubling is the casual dismissal of a sexual assault victim’s experience, with the victim being told not to exaggerate. The early introduction of smoking and drinking to the children also reflects a concerning level of acceptance.
An emotional void is palpable, particularly regarding overt expressions of love, with the family dogs often receiving more demonstrative affection. Bobo’s observation at age seven, “Mum hardly even lets me hold her hand,” speaks to a legacy of hurt and grief impacting her parents. A life-altering tragedy, for which Bobo feels responsible, is described as slicing her life in half, extinguishing her parents’ previously “joyful careless embrace of life.” Subsequent tragedies are recounted with raw pain. The descriptions of her mother under the influence of medication are particularly harrowing: “In the morning, when she’s just on the pills, she’s very sleepy and calm and slow and deliberate, like someone who isn’t sure where her body ends and the world starts.” The descent into a “contained, soggy madness” blurs the lines between her mother’s and the world’s madness. Comparisons to a fish in a dried riverbed waiting for rain, and a mouth that seems to have lost control, illustrate the profound emotional and mental distress. The haunting interruption of sentences by the cries of dead babies and the fear of leaving a child in an unmarked grave highlight the deep-seated trauma. Her mother grieves “with her mind (which is unhinged) and her body (which is alarming and leaking).”
Other Notable Observations
The memoir is punctuated by evocative descriptions: a new home possessing a “green-leafy lie of prosperity”; the overwhelming opulence of fancy hotels where “the chairs were swallowingly soft”; the hesitant “first rains… still deciding what sort of season to create”; a flamboyant tree outside cracking as if anticipating fire; the “reluctant milk” of captured wild cattle, undrinkable even with added flavor; a German aid worker’s keenness on “saving the environment,” a concept previously unconsidered by the narrator; and the lingering fondness for Africa, remembered with “a fondness born of distance and the tangy reminder of a gin-and-tonic evening,” even after settling in England. These observations, often poetic and insightful, reveal a child’s keen awareness of her surroundings, even amidst profound personal and societal turmoil.
