This coming July will mark my 2 years after returning to Zimbabwe and starting my first job. After 6 years of globetrotting and I came back to the nest. Yup!
Not long ago, I bumped into people who saw me as a one-time host on Snapchat ZimboChat. I had underestimated the power of the platform until my I got a lot of real social media followers. Friends were beginning to ask me about my experience, my work and how I am managing being back in Zimbabwe. I realized that I would be holding on to knowledge that could benefit someone, the longer I did not treat storytelling as a priority in my life as a returnee.
My story begins in Freshman year, when I began to think about my career and where I will be after college. By that time, I had declared Political Science as my major. However, by fall semester, the major felt inadequate to propel me into a career of my dreams in America. All internships available in the major were government or federal, and only citizens or permanent residents were eligible. I was not about to take any major either. Summer 2014 I came back home where I did volunteer work. While back home, I found out that a political science degree back home did not seem marketable, neither was one from America. I considered changing my major.
In fall 2014, I attended my first international studies class, and in Spring 2015 the following year I took a 14 hour flight from Atlanta to Seoul to attend a conference through the department of International Studies. I entered my Sophomore year as an international studies major. Thanks to the overlapping major electives in Political Science and International Studies as a subfield of the former, I was eligible for a study abroad which was also a requirement to graduate with an International Studies major.
The program by School of International Training seemed more appealing to me because of its convenient location in Geneva central Europe, and would be great experience for both my academic and professional learning. So in Spring 2014, I took some study abroad pre-requisite classes. In fall 2015, I went to Switzerland for a semester abroad. The following years were filled with local and international travel. I was truly a busy bee doing research, attending conferences, working a campus job, taking extra classes and trying to keep my GPA decent all the same. The 4 years in Atlanta went by so quick, it felt like 2 and a half years. By 2017, I had been to 12 countries and 10 US States and Territories.
Seeing the career paths my friends classmates and associates were taking, it was a natural impulse to move back to Zimbabwe regardless of the country’s unstable economy shunned by many and driving out many professionals as we speak. I have friends who were teaching volunteers in Argentina living in traumatizing squalor. There are some first generation Americans who have decided to trace back their roots in the islands, so they spend a summer overseas working with a local NGO. There are British interns working in update positions in international organizations, living in a shared 2 bedroomed apartment in downtown Geneva. There are some South American girls working administrative jobs in major UN organizations.
At some point I had considered teaching English in China. But, my financial or immigration status always seemed to get in the way. I thought if I can teach English all the way in China why then I might consider working home in Zimbabwe. The Teaching English era is way past it’s golden age in China, even working class Americans were moving out of this once attractive occupation for expatriates. Also, I did not know how being a young African single female teacher would be in China, a country well-known for racially related micro-aggressions on Africans. I have a friend who did it though, she was fluent in Mandarin and every once in a while I hear from her it is always the Chinese Firewall a reason for the absence from social media.
A lot has happened in Zimbabwe in the past 24 months. The country is said to be on the edge of an economic recession. Inflation is up 510% according to latest speculations. From the politics side nobody knows what’s going on . But let the floodgates open! Business is business.
