The truth about life in the UK

The truth about life in the UK

• Blessed are those with passports...

• The only time I wish I was in Zimbabwe

• Tribal hang-ups must cease

• A nation locked in negativism

• Zimbabwe's scattered marriages

• Now recruiting: traditional healers and prophets

• The double life of exiled Zimbabweans

By Norah Spie

THIS column is not a write-on-demand but on occasions, I will write from requests.

A lot of readers wanted to know more about what Zimbabweans in London get up to (by London they mean the whole of U.K!).

We have heard stories about how our sisters do the unthinkable, and how some of our brothers have refused to be outdone in engaging in activities that can only be described as nefarious.

The question is; do these things really happen? The simple answer is YES.

If people ask a question, I am sure they trust me to answer as honestly as I can. Believe me, here in the UK people get up to all sorts. I am talking about doing ANYTHING for money.

There are a number of girls who end up in wrong places all in the name of money. The men are not too far behind because they too are up to no good. As a nation, we were blessed with beauty and the west is ever ready to embrace our naive girls who believe that a man will pay lots of money to an agency so that a model can just "escort" him!

London has hundreds of escorting agencies that link up desperate, lonely rich men with attractive girls after a quick buck. Firstly let me say this again; life in Western countries is extremely expensive and demanding. Only those who are hard working will survive hence some people, both men and women, end up in prostitution. Remember that double life I once wrote about -- that is also a major cause of why the weak choose unconventional ways to make the dollar.

It's necessary to point out that it's not only Zimbabweans who do these things, but right now, right here, I will just talk about my people. I am not the one to judge anyone -- it's a free world. These people are not part of a human trafficking gang so they themselves choose to do this -- so who am l to tell them what they already know?

For the sake of information, here is the deal. Our girls are involved in escorting, stripping in gentlemen's clubs, pole-dancing and street pick-ups. There are some men who are swinging both ways. Yes, you heard me right. I mean straight men are taking money from other men in exchange for sex. This might sound extreme but it is real.

From newspaper reports, most of you might have read about a number of our boys involved in unscrupulous business deals -- that is the order of the day here. They call it Bosh. It involves depositing big cheques in banks and withdrawing large sums before the cheque is rejected down the line. You hear guys bragging about how they don't "shift" and yet they have lots of cash and in typical black men style -- lots of liquid assets. It's all about surviving in a place where we do not get a fair chance in anything I guess.

Then there are the popular sham marriages. These do take place even between two Zimbabweans and usually, one of the parties is a nurse. Some of our brothers or sisters keen to regularise their stay in the UK have to enter into these arrangements. I am kind of sympathetic to this situation because I know people are just trying to make the best for themselves but it is unfair if the other person is in the dark. Having said that -- who said life is fair? It is survival of the fittest!

For the past three years, the number of nurses getting married has risen sharply but it is set to drop after the British government decided they now have enough nurses and will be scaling down on foreign recruitments. Will we see a rise in divorces then?

I remember about five years ago when people used to whisper if they heard that an unmarried couple is living together. This is common in the British society but of course where we come from it is taboo, but now every other couple "lives-in".

Nobody cares anymore, plus the parents are usually back in Zimbabwe and will probably never know how their children live, or if they do discover, and nag, then money can be arranged to be sent as lobola. There are extreme situations where some of our desperate sisters even pay their own lobola just to keep their men!

In this situation, the men are the ones who usually gain because not only do they continue to live as if they were single, but they have a home and a woman who cooks for them and pays the bills. They will put up with some drama she might bring but its all worth it because housing here is painfully expensive!

Call me racist, but I know I am not. But why does a fine brother end up with a fat, unattractive white girl? Love is surely blind or is it the power of the red passport? And have you noticed how most white men married to black women are usually funny looking? Would that same girl have dated a man like that if he were black? Is this not another form of colonisation? We might think we are being clever by deceiving them but who is fooling who?

This issue remains hot in America and often black women are accused of being insecure because they complain that their men are being taken. Top actors like Denzel Washington won't even appear on screen with a white woman if it involves love or romantic scenes. They say he does not want to upset us -- the women of colour. I personally appreciate his efforts.
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There is heart-breaking poverty at home but a few young people are living large in Zimbabwe right now. I know some of them were smart enough to capitalise when the country's economy collapsed. Spare those.

It is the 20-year-olds who hang around Avondale that I am concerned about. Where do they get their money?

There is a steady stream of information that they are dealing with drugs. Why are the authorities looking the other way? It's not only those in the diaspora that are getting up to no good. There is also a lot of rot in the state of Zimbabwe!

Poverty is driving people to do the unthinkable. Who would have thought that our ever so "clean" Zimbabwe would one day be a drug haven? I suspect this new problem has caught the law enforcement officers off guard. They clearly do not know how to deal with the ever rising number of people dealing with hard drugs like cocaine.

They were just used to chasing youngsters who smoked joints of mbanje. It is relatively easy to sneak illegal substances into Zimbabwe because of the corrupt customs staff at the borders. And yet when an innocent person tries to get personal goods in, they will make you regret the day you were born. It's a scandal.
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Just a word to all those who send goods home from the UK. There is a group of people posing as a freight company -- they collect your goods and your money but they never deliver the stuff as promised.

It costs nothing to exercise a bit of caution. Always ask for verification before you lose your hard earned cash!

Norah Spie's new weekly column appears here every Wednesday. You can e-mail her at n_spie@hotmail.com. Her new book, Parallel Lines, is available at many good bookshops and you can also order it online from AMAZON

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