From New Cross, With Love

The 2nd noisiest pub/club that kept me awake on weekends when I lived in New Cross, London, UK


Saliva churns in my stomach at the thought of today’s excursion to the School of African Studies in Russell Square. I have to return, yet again. But instead of the complicated and congested route color coded by the London Tube Map, I will take the bus. I imagine with dread, haggling, as I have before, with the random bus inspector who insists my ticket has expired, yet we both know that in bad traffic, it takes over an hour from New Cross to Holborn Station.

This thought makes me hesitant of other things too, perhaps I should not penetrate the city, and in turn, the city will not penetrate me. I will stand on its edges discovering more of me in its great libraries, but my tongue will never yield to Brit intonations forgetting my own, as though it were a rite of initiation into the 'English way of life'. The Shona stays in my tongue, reverberates in my ears shielded with double-glazing from losing its rhythm. My ears never stopped hearing its showered inflections of zvi’s and r’s wrapped and rolled in memories of home. Missing l’s in its linguistic frame, missing hot morning porridge with lemon and peanut butter slurped with my father on tall stools around the kitchen counter, I scratch off the code from the card and call my mother.


Mosi-O-A-Tunya/The Smoke That Thunders

This piece is an extract from a longer work in progress: copyright konwomyn 2009