Migration scholars have documented the many challenges that migrants face when the make the choice to leave their home countries to live abroad. For many, decisions to leave are forced by circumstances well beyond their control. They struggle to leave and the struggle to settle in their new stations.

Perhaps the most pressing challenge is the separation between parents and their young children which happens when parents take leave to seek pastures new and once there find it hard but toil nevertheless until things are better enough to bring their children.

Meanwhile, grandparents of Zimbabwe will be doing a sterling job, often against the odds to look after their grandchildren. Yet for many parents just when they think they have settled and can now bring their children to join them, they find many impediments that the law places in their paths.

For years, I have read many a tale and have come to appreciate the pain that mothers and fathers go through in their bid to be reunited with their children. This piece is inspired by the stories of these parents and the challenge their face against ‘rules’ that govern migration.

What follows is of course my creation - the story, as told by the heart of a mother to an officer in charge of migration, although some mothers and fathers might find commonalities with their own personal stories. But of course like all stories told here, it’s much more than a migration story.

HOW do I explain the scars that a mother’s heart carries? How do I explain this to you, Mister? How do I even start to explain the pain that these words you have written do to a mother’s heart? Because I fear you don’t understand. Not because you’re a man, no but because you too, like me and my son, are a prisoner of the system. But I will try, because I must.

It’s hard you know, for me, an African woman to explain these things to you and make you understand how it works back in the village. You have never lived in a village have you? And no, I don’t mean these posh villages here – Chartham Village, Colne Village and others with fancy names that differentiate them from the suburbs and estates with ‘match-box’ type houses that all look the same. Your estates with their rows of houses conjure up images of a honeycomb except you don’t really live and work collectively like bees do. I will tell you about honey later, Mister – I have experience with bees, bitter-sweet memories.

In my village back home, children roam around and get up to all sorts but they know that every elder has authority over them. Every elder also recognises the responsibility they have towards the children. So if an elder sees you urinating behind a neighbour’s hut he will admonish you just like your father would do. He might even chastise you, with a small stick freshly cut from the nearest peach tree. And if you report to your father that the neighbour has chastised you for urinating at the back of the neighbour’s hut, your father will probably chastise you even harder, with a bigger stick freshly cut from the nearest eucalyptus tree.

Back in the day, when the gods were generous and food fell from the sky, if you visited a neighbour and found him having his meal, you could join in. It’s difficult now because food does not fall from the sky anymore. OK, I see your face and it says, “How can food fall from the sky?”!

No, it’s not another of those quaky African stories you have heard before. Eish! my continent – so many stories about my continent and many of them far away from reality. It’s not all jungle and wild animals you know, Mister. You haven’t been there? No. OK. When you do, I hope you enjoy it. We don’t have lions for dogs or monkeys for mates. In fact, I had never seen lion until I visited the London Zoo some years ago. I had to come to Europe to see a lion; a lion in a small artificial jungle in the middle of concrete London!

When I say food falling form the sky, I am simply saying in those days, it was easier to get food. It’s not like it is now when villagers queue to receive food handouts from donors. Europeans and Americans are feeding the villagers. How odd, you know because many years ago, when the Europeans came to my land, they looking for one thing: minerals and they were buying food from my ancestors. They had their eyes on the gold and diamonds. Kimberly and the Rand in the south had whetted their appetite and they thought, let’s go north of the Limpopo and discover the Second Rand, as it was called. There was none of course.

Well, now we know there actually was a mini-Kimberly in the Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe but their machines did not have the eyes to see it deep down in the belly of the land. Or maybe the ancestors clenched their fists tightly and hid the diamonds from view only to reveal them over a hundred years later. What I want to tell you is that the European was not really producing food in those days because his eye was on the gold and diamonds. He started serious farming when he realised the search for gold and diamonds was futile. There was not going to be a Second Rand so that dream rapidly died. Before then, my ancestors were plying a thriving trade with the European – producing food for prospectors’ market. But now, the villagers rely on handouts from Europeans and Americans. I don't know if you know why but in case you don't and you have time still, I will tell you why.

Where was I, again? O, yes, I was telling you about the African village. Really, the point is that the child in this village is everyone’s responsibility. When a daughter goes to work in Harare, she probably leaves her children with her mother. Grandmother looks after the children and daughter sends money from time to time. Later when she’s settled, the children can go to Harare to live with their mother. During school holidays, the children trek back to the village to help grandma in her maize fields or to look after her cattle and goats. That’s the way it is. We help each other; it’s a collective effort.

I say this to you Mister, because you have written here on my son’s paper - let me read it to you in case you've forgotten - you said that “you have not provided satisfactory evidence that your mother has been solely responsible for your upkeep during the 5 years that she has been in the UK”.

“I therefore”, these are your words Mister, “I therefore am not satisfied that your mother has the sole responsibility for your upbringing …” This is what you write, Mister, isn’t it? Yes, I see you nodding - the type of nodding that tells me you agree. And you say here in your letter that your rules require this.

Rules, rules, rules! Now, where do I start? I have never been lucky with rules. Always, it seems, rules have been at the wrong side of me, always! Sorry but I must laugh, not because of anything sweet but a laugh of exasperation. So excuse me while I laugh …

You see, Mister, rules are like a clever monster lurking in the dark of the night. However carefully you try to walk, the monster will always find you. Even if you open your eyes and try, as the privileged fish does in dark waters, to walk in the night you might find yourself at the bottom of a pit. Or you hit a wall. Or hit a rock and stumble and fall. That’s rules for you, Mister.

They have been hard on me, rules, especially your rules here. 5 years, yes, the 5 that are represented by these fingers, I struggled to fit into the rules, so that I could freely without ducking at the sound of the siren or changing my path at the sight of anyone wearing a fluorescent jacket. 5 years of creative stories upon walking into an employment agency to apply for a job.

They would ask me a question at reception and I ask, “Why do you need that?”, “Why do you need an NI number?” or at first, “What’s an NI number?” And the lady would look at me pretending to care and say, “It’s the rules”. Of course, I later learnt that the letters NI which every agent had been asking for stand for 'National Insurance', some kind of tax that we all have to pay. If you were not looking so serious I would tell you how I got my first numbers - the numbers that enabled me to pass the first test with every agent because whenever they asked for the damned NI number I always had something to give them. I will tell you anyway, because I was told the trick but one of those agents at the employment centre.

She took me aside and said, what's your date of birth and i gave her. She wrote my date of birth, the month I was born in numbers and the numbers of my birth year and then she put the letter "T" before those numbers. She said that's your NI number for now. I don't know why she did that for me. I don't even know whether she did it for me or for herself. At the time I just felt so grateful and thanked a my Good Lord for this wonderful angel who rescued by employment bid that was fast reaching a dead-end because of those numbers that I had no clue what they were for.

Later, as I lay in bed, I thought maybe she just gave me the numbers because she must have been desperate for labour. But I hated that thought because it was too cruel. I was raised in the church, you see, and such bad thoughts about other people, especially those that would have helped you, are sinful. So I accepted that she was an angel sent to me. If I told my grandmother, she would have said it's the ancestors who were looking after their daughter.

The other day I wanted to send the little cash I had gathered – to this very boy for whom you have written these things on his papers that I do not have ‘sole responsibility’ for his upbringing. And the gentleman behind the glass panel said he wanted something I can’t really remember what it was right now. But he wanted something.

“It’s the rules, I’m afraid”, he said with a face that also said, “I didn’t create them. I hate them, too”. So I laughed when he said that and he joined me in the laughter. We both laughed because we realised we were united in our hatred of rules. He is the one man I saw who was required to apply rules but didn’t like them and was not afraid to also show his disdain for them.

It’s a 'rules society', this society of yours, Mister. Your expression is hard to decipher. You’re not like the man at the money-transfer agency who laughed with me at the rules. But maybe yours is a more important job than the money-transfer agent man’s job. He sends and receives money and you control people – those who come in especially, like me and my son of whom you have said there are no considerations which make his exclusion of this country where I, his mother lives, undesirable. In other words, it is desirable that he stays there away from his mother – that is what you say.

You know, Mister, I have done quite a few jobs in my time, even though I was a ‘ghost’ – I was a ‘ghost’ because I was not recognised under the rules! Every time, at a new job, we would go through a long list of ‘Health and Safety’ rules. I have gone through the same routine so many times that I now consider myself a ‘Health and Safety’ expert. I laughed to my self the other day when I thought, if this was home, back in the village and the words “Health and Safety” were used as much, one of the fathers would by now have named his twin children, “Health and Safety”. In fact, I will suggest it – sounds good, doesn’t it, Health and Safety?

So yeah, I know all about rules. I don’t like rules. I find them very oppressive. Someone just sat in his chair and wrote ‘rules’ and thought they knew everything? Surely, these rules can’t cover everything? Why, Mister, let me ask you, why really doyou allow yourself to be imprisoned by ‘rules’? What happened to the independence of the mind that God gave us – you and I? But no, it’s the rules. Goodness, a society that prohibits flexibility of the mind and yet sings freedom of this and that … You know its good that my son stays with me but you say ‘rules’ say otherwise …

So anyhow, like I have explained there – you remember? Sorry, I talk too much, I know. Even when I was in the village, when we went to wash family clothes at the river, I would always talk more than the rest of the women. They said I had a mouth that does not allow a fly to land on it. It’s an old African saying, not that we eat flies, no. A mouth that does not talk does not move much, so a tired fly finds it easier to land on the lips of such a mouth, perhaps scavenging because the mouth is the channel for feeding, isn’t it? Flies prefer the stillness of a quieter mouth. But if you talk too much, your mouth is constantly on the move and flies don’t like that. So I used to say, it’s a good thing that I talk too much as you say, because then flies don’t land on my mouth!

Anyway, I was telling the story of the village where everyone’s door is open to everyone; where the neighbour chastises the naughty child on behalf of his fellow neighbour, where the son or daughter leaves for the city, leaving his or her mother to care for her children whilst looking for work and settling in the city. I was telling you this so that you understand that this idea of “sole responsibility” that you refer to in your ‘rules’ is not universal and requires some flexibility in interpretation.

I see little boys and girls in my Estate here in Nottingham – they will be drinking, smoking and doing naughty things that even my talkative mouth cannot say. No-one can say anything to them. No-one stops them, not even the parents. Neighbours walk past, pretending they are not seeing anything. A friend tried to report the neighbour’s children to his neighbour and the neighbour said to her, “What business of yours is it to know what my children are doing? What do you know about my children?” My friend put her tail between her legs and left. She learnt to keep her mouth shut. Even I had to tell my talkative mouth to keep quiet on these things. I told it that this village here is not your village; the village that you know.

You know, and this will be the last, I once worked in a place where we cared for the elderly and infirm. My president doesn’t like it, you know. He said we shouldn’t be doing that but       I don’t know if he doesn’t know why we have had to do these jobs here. If you have time later, maybe I can tell you more. But I must tell you that I found it very odd that we had all these elderly people, whom we fed, cleaned and generally tried to make comfortable yet only once or twice per year would we ever see their children. They would come with cards and flowers, driving very big and beautiful cars and sometimes with their little children. Those who were visited were the lucky ones.

Some of them just lived there – no-one came, nobody called. It was like watching disused furniture that no-one wanted anything to do with and simply threw to the nearest dump, where it would either rot or if luckier, someone would pick it for recycling. I have never quite understood how children can actually do that to their parents because you know, some of the people I worked with did not treat these elderly people very well.  They were quite cruel, actually. I felt sorry for the elderly people that although they had children to protect them, they were not there to do that.

See, back in the village we looked after our elderly and sick. We did it together, collectively. We buried them together, too. I was surprised the other day when I got an invitation to a funeral. It was a card, rather like we used back home when we invited people to parties and weddings.  A private funeral? I asked my fellow employee and she explained to me what it was like. It is so different. In the village, a funeral is open to all. In fact, there are some, like the man called Shangwiti, who are ever present at every funeral – attending funerals is like a speciality to him - he eats there, sleeps there and does some work. But no-one chases them away because they provide company and labour to the bereaved.

So, when I saw a card inviting someone to a funeral here, I laughed when I thought, “What if I just go there, too because I knew the deceased?” Would they call me a ‘Gatecrasher’? That would be hilarious, I thought, especially if I related the story to my fellow women back in the village during our fire-wood gathering trip to the forest.

So, Mister, this thing you say, that I haven’t shown that I have had ‘sole responsibility’ for my son’s upbringing, to be honest, I don’t understand. Your concept of responsibility and mine are different, you see. I have tried to explain here, how it works for us. How could I have ‘sole responsibility’ for my boy when for 5 years I have been here, trying to escape my ‘ghost’ status under your rules, and my son has been living with my mother in Harare?

The boy surely had to eat. He had to have somewhere to sleep. He had to be cared for when sick. He needed school fees. Because I have been here, I couldn’t give him all these things, Mister. What I was doing and what my mother was giving him couldn’t possibly fit into what you refer to as ‘sole responsibility’ could it? It can’t be sole responsibility, Mister because it simply can’t be. It’s impossible under the circumstances, unless you are persuaded by my argument that whatever responsibility my mother was exercising in my son’s case, was in effect my own. That is, if you can read my mother’s role as my role, by way of agency, Mister because she has been my agent for the past 5 years. Let’s call my mother my ‘Sole Responsibility Agent’ if you like. Sounds better, huh?

I could tell you the story of Babamukuru, my father’s older brother. You want to know what he did? My father had gone away to work – very far away. He wanted us to go to school. It was hard in those days and us girls were lucky to go to school. My father was a good man so he went down to Bulawayo to look for work. It was very far. Then he sent money. It was just enough to cover the basics but it wasn’t enough to buy school shoes. The head teacher wanted everyone to wear black shoes and white socks. Mother sent a message with the bus driver so that he would deliver it to baba, my father in Bulawayo. Father sent a message with the driver to say he was short of money and that no one could lend him anything at that time but that he would work extra shifts that month to get money for my shoes and socks. So I had to stay at home while others went to school, because I didn’t have black school shoes and white socks.

Babamukuru, my father’s brother had returned from Joni down south, where he had worked in the mines for many years. His leg had been broken in a mining accident so he returned home. He stayed at home and performed just basic tasks – the few things that his impaired leg could allow him. He had a good, courageous heart, Babamukuru, but his body could no longer obey his heart’s will. I saw it in his eyes that it pained him so much. Sometimes I caught him with tears welling up in his eyes and then he would say it’s the dust from the mines that cause continuous wetness in his eyes. I felt sorry for him.

Anyway, when he saw that I was at home he asked why I wasn’t going to school when his brother had sent money. I told him that I didn’t have black shoes and white socks which the school demanded.

Babamukuru walked all the way to the school the next day and pleaded with the head teacher to allow me to attend lessons while I waited for the black shoes and white socks that father was going to send at the end of the month. The head teacher refused. He said it was school policy and he could not change it just for me. He insisted that I must have the black shoes and white socks before I could come to school. He said it was about standards. Yah, I told you didn’t I?

I have experience with rules. They have always been on the wrong side of me, the rules. Society rules could have prevented me from going to school in favour of my borthers but now that I had overcome them, here school rules were again preventing me from attending school. Rules don’t like me and I don’t like them.

Anyway, Babamukuru left the school a heartbroken man. He passed though Mujubeki’s farm, which is near our village. Mujubeki is the name we gave to the white man who owned the farm. He was a good farmer and employed a lot of the man in the villages. He produced a lot of maize and tobacco and had many cattle. He had so many cattle they didn’t have any names. They were different from ours which were few and they all had names, Bantom, Dhongeri, Kotweri, London, Super, Chimurenga, Mereki and many more.

I don’t know where we got those names from but I remember a cousin who went to Harare one school holiday and when he came back he named a newly born calf Charter Road just because he had seen the name of that road in Harare and it had impressed him. So the cow was forever known as Charter Road. We once named one ox British and Sekuru, my grandfather staged a strong protest that no cow of his would ever be called by that name. I don’t know why he resisted but we were stubborn so that ox had two names – one that Sekuru gave him and ‘British’ that we called him.

Looking back, he must have been a very confused ox but it was never able to protest. It simply learnt to answer both names. Mujubeki’s cattle were so many that naming them would have been impossible so he gave them numbers which were stamped by hot iron on their backs.

Babamukuru went to Mujubeki and asked for a job. But Mujubeki asked what job he could give to a man with Babamukuru’s physical challenge. He said he didn’t have any work for him. Babamukuru pleaded and said he could do anything, whatever he, Mujubeki wanted him to do. Mujubeki asked Babamukuru why he was so desperate for a job.

Babamukuru explained my desperation for black school shoes and white socks. Mujubeki felt pity. He said Babamukuru and I should get into his car as he was going to the township to get some fuel for his tractors. We got to the shops and Mujubeki took Babamukuru and I to the big supermarket which also sold clothes. Mujubeki spoke to the shop assistant briefly. She took me to shoes section and asked me to choose my size and then brought three pairs of long white socks.

That is how I went to school. Babamukuru and Mujubeki helped me to get the black shoes and the white socks. Babamukuru insisted that Mujubeki could not do all this for free and that he would do some work for him, whatever work. In the end, Mujubeki relented and said Babamukuru could work on the farm helping file his documents in his office.

You see, Mister, I have told you this for one reason: that although I was my father’s daughter, my father could never claim to have had ‘sole responsibility’ for me. Babamukuru, Mujubeki and many others all played their parts in helping me to realise my dream. So no, Mister, this language of ‘sole responsibility’ which you use to deny me the opportunity to bring my children so that I can live with me, no I do not understand it at all.

“It’s the rules, madam”, you say. I knew that was coming. I could talk about this “madam” thing, but let me leave that for later …