Transcription, Episode 3:
Ties That Bind (Tendayi Chivero)
september 5, 2019
Listen to Tendayi’s episode (available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Himalaya and Google Play) hear his full story from our ‘Stand By Me’ 2018 live show.
Clara Davis: You're listening to Unravel, the podcast, where we go behind and beyond stories featured at our monthly live shows. From Shanghai, I'm your host, Clara Davis.
STORY CLIP 1:
Tendayi Chivero: So usually when I get introduced to people, we’ll make little chit-chat and then usually there's a kind of a pause. And then, where are you from?
And I've realized that this question matched with the sort of quizzical, intense expression is due to the fact that the way I sound, my accent, and the way I look are kind of in congress. So then I'll say, ‘Well, I'm from Belfast, Northern Ireland.”
And some of you might have already picked that one, yeah. So a bit more chat, and then sometimes they'll be a kind of cock to the head and, “Where are your family from…?”
Alright, so it's usually at this point that I kinda put the poor souls out of their misery and explain that I’m the products of a Northern Irish mother and a father from Zimbabwe. So, how did this come about? Well, in the 1980s, mid-1980s, my parents found themselves both studying in England and probably were drawn together by mutual stories of persecution by the British [laughs]. My mother was arrested on a number of occasions for the crime of sounding Irish and my father was black in the ‘80s. But in any case, they met, fell in love, married had me, and in 1986, when I was 1 year old, we moved to Zimbabwe.
Clara Davis: Today's episode features Tendayi Chivero and the story he shared, at our ‘Stand By Me’ show almost a year ago. His story digs deeper into that multi-layered identity he references in the clip you just heard, the questions he's been asked throughout his life, and the answers he's found along the way. This is a tale of discovery, of his family and himself, it's as continents and decades. You'll hear more of his story throughout the episode. We hope you enjoy my conversation with Tendayi.
START OF INTERVIEW:
Clara Davis: Can you first say your full name for the microphone?
Tendayi Chivero: Yes, my name is Tendayi Chivero. I mean, I've got two middle names as well, but they're pretty tough.
CD: Can you give us the whole name?
TC: Yes, my name is Tendayi Hatinete Chengetai Chivero
CD: Why do you leave out those two middle ones, it flows off your tongue!
TC: I think Tendayi throws people enough, without chucking in Hatinete Chengetai.
Tendayi’s actually a really common name in Zimbabwe, it’s not a weird name, it's basically like John; If you go down the street and call ‘Tendayi’ ten people turn around. So yeah, it's actually not that uncommon. But yeah, Zimbabwe is a small place. So if it’s not inside of Zimbabwe, you're not gonna see many Tendayis.
CD: You start off your story with having to explain where your family is from, in order to explain how you came to be from Belfast. Growing up, did you know other mixed families like yours?
TC: There are very few black or brown faces in Belfast in the early '90s. We knew some other families from Zimbabwe, but they weren't mixed they'd moved from Zimbabwe to Northern Ireland when things had started to go a little bit wrong, back in Zimbabwe in the early 90s.
So yeah, not really any mixed families. That's very different now actually it’s very sort of diverse multi-cultural place now Belfast, but back then I definitely stood out.
CD: When you have to give that explanation to people that you meet, about where you're from, how do you reconcile your Zimbabwe and your Northern Irish identities?
TC: I think having spent what you'd call my formative years in Belfast living there from the age of 9 to 18, and then obviously, that was still home while I was at university after the age of 18 and that's where all my best friends are—I think being Northern Irish is definitely the core part of my identity. I guess that’s how I would introduce myself, mainly because that's what the accent is, but obviously, when people look at me and hear my name, then there's a whole other identity which brings itself up. And I'm very proud of that Zimbabwean identity as well and identify a lot with that. So I guess if you're talking about sports teams, I'll support Ireland, but if Ireland were playing Zimbabwe,I'd probably go for Zimbabwe.
STORY CLIP 2:
Tendayi Chivero: My father made the decision for our family to move back to the UK. Now, you can imagine going from beautiful sunny, happy vibrant Zimbabwe of that time, to cold, gray, bleak England in the early 90s. It wasn't a popular decision with me or my mother, but my father was adamant. And actually it's probably quite a present decision because it wasn't long after that that Robert Mugabe, the president at that time, started his process of landform whereby he took land from the white farmers and redistributed it to his cronies in the government and the military. So that whole process basically decimated Zimbabwe’s economy and turned it from the bread basket of Africa to an economic basket case really, where a loaf of bread could set you back a trillion Zim dollars.
So anyway, we find ourselves in the UK, we moved around a little bit in England and by 1994, so this is when I'm nine years old, we settled in Belfast my mother's hometown. But in the background of all of this, my parents' relationship was beginning to strain, so by the time I was entering my teens, my father was living separately—from us—nearby, but separately. My father was always a bit of an enigma to me. We never really had any deep conversations beyond anything like sports and school work and current affairs, we never really got below that kind of surface. By the time I was taking my A levels, so that's when you're 18 years old and your taking your final exams, I was probably only seeing him once a week at best.
And it was the day after my final exam, that he actually, he was taken to hospital, he was ill...It wasn't anything to be too worried about, he had a kidney problem, but they were gonna have to keep him in for a couple of days. I think it was about two days later, I went to visit him in the morning, that's when I saw my mother sitting in the waiting room, she arrived before me, and it took one look at her face, to realize that something terrible had happened.
Clara Davis: Tendayi’s father passed away suddenly and unexpectedly and I spoke to Tendayi about uncovering his father's past in the wake of his death. I also wanted to learn more about the person Tendayi’s father was and about his home country of Zimbabwe.
INTERVIEW:
CD: Do you know a lot about your mom and dad meeting?
TC: You know what, no, I don't really know a lot about it. I know kind of geographically where they met, but not the circumstances behind it. I guess it's some kind of student party. They were student activists, so they were always looking for causes to follow.
CD: And did they proceed to fight for the same causes?
TC: They did fight for the same causes, there's actually weirdly...so, when my father passed away, going through all this old stuff, my mother just pulled out this case of just pictures and there's clippings of him at protests, it was actually him and a bunch of friends at a protest for women's rights back in the 1970s—late 70s, early 80s—and they'd been arrested in the newspaper. So yeah, some cool stuff you get to pick up when you troll through your parents' old possessions, which maybe you don't get to do so much when they're still alive.
CD: Did they stay politically active? Do you have those memories?
TC: Not so much, it’s kind of weird because we moved to Zimbabwe there wasn't so much protest about, because Zimbabwe had just gained independence. Everyone was super hopeful, super happy. Yeah, that was the vibe. Even as a kid you could feel that vibe, that kind of hopefulness and national happiness.
There wasn't really a lot to protest, unfortunately a lot of that’s change in Zimbabwe in more recent times; but back then, no so growing up, never really got that kind of vibe—they are always political, always listen to the BBC World Service and all this kind of thing, so always very aware of what's going on in the world and any injustices happening.
CD: How would you succinctly describe the current political situation in Zimbabwe, or those of us who might not be caught up?
TC: Succinctly [laughs]...Now, yeah that's actually a challenging one. Okay, right...so essentially there was a de facto dictatorship from independence right up until just two years ago, which is Robert Mugabe. He was great at first, then like anyone who has power for too long, he got corrupted and essentially ran the country into the ground, trying to hold on to power so...all of the main infrastructure is now dilapidated, the economy’s destroyed, most of the educated population has left to find work elsewhere, so it's not in a good position right now.
And they've got a new leader, but he's from the same political party as the old leader, and it seems like nothing much has changed. So yeah, it's really a sad situation, because it's a beautiful country, a lot of natural resources and the people are just lovely, lovely people. It's one of the few countries in Africa that hasn't experienced civil war even though it's gone through all of this politically turbulent time, and I think that sort of speaks volumes about what the people are like there.
CD: Once you guys moved to Belfast did your dad returned to Zimbabwe?
TC: He did, he went back a few times. It was funny, he always kept his watch on Zimbabwe time; so his heart was definitely in Zimbabwe all the time that we were in the UK, although it was his decision to leave Zimbabwe and as I said in the story, it’s ultimately the right one, when you see what's happened economically and politically in that country. But for sure, his heart was definitely still back there; it was where all of his best friends were, where he grew up. When he passed away, we knew we had to take his body back and bury him there because that's where he'd want to be. Yeah, I haven't actually been Zimbabwe since we buried my father. It's a long, long time. And essentially, that's because the political situation has been in flux.
It's really hard, it's actually very expensive to get there. And then once you get there, it's very hard to move around. There's no petrol, there's no all of this. And then all of the family are living either in South Africa or in different parts of Africa, so it’s actually in terms of going back there, it almost needs something to pull me back there, it's quite a hard one to decide to go.
STORY CLIP 3:
Tendayi Chivero: The next few weeks are a bit of a blur as you can imagine. I remember a lot of music and dancing and food and well-wishers at our house in Belfast for the wake. I remember the BA Flight to Zimbabwe, where we were upgraded to first class, probably the bereaved family package. I remember the funeral in Zimbabwe surrounded by family I hadn't seen in over a decade. I remember it being uncharacteristically cold as well. But anyway, a few weeks after all of that, my mother sat myself and my little sister done and said, “Look, I've got something very important to tell you...:”
For a while she'd been suspecting that our father had been holding something back from her, and actually earlier that year, she managed to get it out of him, he confessed to her that he had had a child with a woman before they had met. He was 17 years old at the time, he was living in London and studying, and he'd met a woman who was much older than him. She had fallen pregnant and wanted to keep the child. That was all the information my mom had she'd been expecting my father, to reveal this information to me and my little sister, but obviously that wasn't gonna happen now and we had no more information. All the information had gone to his grave with him.
So, I mean, what do you do? You can't Google long lost sister sometime in the 80s. I had basically nothing to go on, I just had my imagination. What was she like when she like me and my sister was tall like me and my sister was...she athletic, was she bookish, was she funny, was she smart, was she weird? You start to construct all of these different imaginary, versions. But with no way to actually follow up on all the curiosity she started to fade. I started to think about it so much. I went to way to university in England and then went down to London for work, and over the years, I thought about her less and less, there was no way I was gonna be able to track her down.
So fast forward to 2010 and I'm living in London and working, and I get a phone call while I out for dinner with my friends and I go outside to answer, it's a phone call for my mother, and she says, "You'll never guess who I've just received a letter from...”
Clara Davis: The discovery of a long lost sister is the kind of life-altering development nobody can quite prepare themselves for. For Tendayi, it raised new questions about the life and experiences of his dad, a man who even prior to this had felt like a bit of an enigma to him. I was curious about how Tendayi processed the news, what that swirl of emotions felt like, especially now that it was impossible to confront his father.
INTERVIEW:
Clara Davis: I know it would be hard to limit it to one, but if you could ask your dad one question, what would it be?
Tendayi Chivero: I don't know how I would be able to choose one question there would be a lot of questions, but the first questions I would ask probably ask wouldn't be about this story in particular. I would be much more about his life growing up in Zimbabwe, which is something I wish I knew a lot more about and something that I guess I'll never really know more about it now; and what it was like for him moving to the UK when he was 17, or I think he was 16 when he moved to the UK and studying there in this country he had never been to before. And then what it was like to be able to go back to Zimbabwe after it had achieved independence, which all they’d ever known was colonial rule. So I think that's what I would really like to...If I could ask him anything it would be along those lines.
CD: In your story there wasn't really any expression of anger when you found out the news that your dad had another child. Can you tell us a little bit about how you felt at that time?
TC: Yeah, obviously when I was writing this story, preparing to tell it to everyone at Unravel, I was kind of, mentally going back to that moment and I asked myself that question. Actually, honestly there was no anger. And I think probably the main reason for that was my father just passed away, when my mother told us we just been Zimbabwe, gone through this whole experience of his funeral in Zimbabwe where I hadn't been since I was a child, and we just got back to Northern Island. I was preparing to go away to university, I was 18 so I was learning how to deal with being the guy, the man of the house, and all this, so I was very conscious of trying to be supportive for my mother, but also for my sister, who was 13, it was really tough for her, she and my dad were really close...
So I don't think anger, there was any room for anger then...Anyway, I don't think that would have been an appropriate emotion to feel at that time, but no, anger since either, I don't think, I think just, I can kind of understand how a 17-year-old might bury that experience. This is my dad, I'm talking about, at the time he was 17 when he found out he was gonna have a child, and I can see how you might just bury that deep in the recesses of your mind, and never unlock that box. That mental box...so I think emotionally it was much more surprise, curiosity, and then a bit of frustration at not really knowing how to go about potentially finding this long lost sister.
CD: Did your dad ever reach out to your sister? Is there any way for you to know that?
TC: I've heard bits and pieces from what my sister heard from her mother, but essentially her mother was very clear that she wanted to raise her herself. She was several years older than my father as well, and she didn't want him to be part of...part of the process of bringing up her child. So I think he saw her maybe once, potentially twice, but I think he definitely saw her once, but then after that, that was it.
I think at that time she also had a medical condition, she'd been told that she, it was unlikely she would have kids so I think she was...you know, this was for her, she really wanted to have a child and the way she raised my sister it sort of seems to really reflect the fact that this was for her and she had really, really wanted to have a child. So, I think my father being from Zimbabwe and clearly wanting to go back to Zimbabwe after completing his studies was a big threat to, you know, her being able to raise her child in Wales which is, what she wanted to do.
STORY CLIP 4:
Tendayi Chivero: She'd been looking for her father, our father, for a while. And she had been given his name by her mother and so she was able to track—well, look for his name online. She’d managed to find my parents' marriage certificate which is how she knew of my mother. At the same time, she'd also found his death certificate, which must have been quite a blow for her given that she was looking for her lost father, she also said in the letter, which makes it doubly terrible that her mother had passed away 12 years previously, when she was 19. So she was now an orphan and she was reaching out to my mother to find out, is there something hereditary that she should be worried about? She's found out, she knows her mother died young and now she's found out her father also died young.
She also mentioned that she lived in London, so I immediately wanted to meet her, but my mother said quite firmly no, she will have lots of questions about your father, which you won't be able to answer. And I wasn't happy about that, but I had to bow to the superior...argument there, so I was like, okay, when are you gonna meet her?
So that weekend, she flew out to meet my mother, and all weekend I was waiting for news of this meeting. How did it go, what’s she like? The rest of it...my mother called me up on the Sunday evening and said the verdict was in...she said she's lovely. You have to meet her.
So two days later, I'm standing on the South Bank in London winds coming in sideways, rain’s pissing down. I've got my umbrella, but it’s dark, the after work crowd rushing by. And I'm standing there and I'm looking at my phone, and I'm thinking...I've exchanged a couple of text messages with her because, obviously, we needed to arrange where we're gonna meet and what time. But I realize that actually don't know what she looks like.
And I start going through this Rolodex in my mind of all the imaginary versions I had created over the years and I'm looking around, I can see every single woman walking past me could be her. I don't know what she looks like and then I see her and she sees me and instantly we know it's one another and she comes up, she gives me this big hug. Well, actually, she gives me a little hug 'cause she's actually quite small. So that's 50% of the imaginary versions gone.
We go to a restaurant nearby and we're chatting and we're just clicking and we're getting on so well. And she tells me that she's a producer at the BBC World Service, and I'm able to tell her that one of my earliest memories of our father is after dinner in Zimbabwe, he'd always turn on the radio and tune it to the BBC World Service for the news, and that's what he'd listen to.
And he’d be so proud to think that his daughter was a producer there, and we chat, and we chat, and we chat, until they kick us out of the restaurant and then we see each other several times over the next few weeks. My little sister comes down to visit and meet her and they get on so well. And all the ways in which we aren't similar they’re similar...
So you can kinda see this familial similarity between us all. And I can see my father in her in the same way that I can see him in my sister. We're just getting so tight and it's just beautiful because it's so easy as well.
And I've gone from being the eldest to being the middle child. So, pressures off...and she's going from being an orphaned only child, to now having two siblings, who she sees all the time, and also a new adopted mom in my mother, who just opened her heart up to her and just took her in like one of her own, it’s really beautiful, and just made the whole experience that much more special...and I know that my father would have been so happy to know that his siblings all found one another. And last July, I had the honor of standing by my sister, and having her stand by me as I took the place where my father should have been giving her away on her wedding day.
Clara Davis: Tendayi’s story came to a powerful and happy ending connecting with his long lost sister and immediately recognizing all of the ways they were connected, unlocking a door to another part of himself and his father. We talked about what the experience meant to him and his family and how it affected his position on nature versus nurture.
INTERVIEW:
Clara Davis: Did eventually meeting your sister and identifying all these similarities make you believe in nature over nurture?
Tendayi Chivero: That's an interesting one, people have asked me this one before and I actually strongly feel that there is no nature versus nature, nature of versus nurture, it’s obviously both have a bearing on the person you turn out to be, in varying degrees.
But for sure, it was super fun finding out all of the similarities between us, but also we're really different as well. There’s a lot of differences, between us. But what's cool is, a lot of the differences that I have with my older sister, she actually has them as similarities with our younger sister, and that was quite cool, because growing up, it was just me and my little sister and then we had our differences, but not seeing those as similarities and someone else that definitely shows you a bit of the nature side. Yeah, it's hard to tell what's nature and...what's nurture, because as far as I hear, her mom was a super cool woman as well. I think we probably ended up having quite similar upbringings.
CD: I assume that you guys have talked at length about what that meant to all of you to find each other. So, maybe this seems like a bit of a trite question, and obviously, you got to be at her wedding, and you can't imagine a better outcome, but meeting you guys must have completely changed the course of her life. Have you guys ever talked about that?
TC: I think it was a super brave thing for her to do, to try to track down this family that she knew nothing about it. Particularly, she told me that she actually knew another woman had gone through a similar thing, around the same time and she'd found the family, and they totally rejected her. So, I mean, you can imagine that mentally, it must have been such a hard thing for her to go and do, but I'm so glad that she did...it sounds like a cliche, but it does feel like, when we're all together, it doesn't feel like we lost all of that time. We're family and if people didn't know they would never guess that we hadn't grown up together.
CD: Your mom was at the show, when you told your story, which was so nice.
TC: Yeah, it was great. She flew in that morning actually, which was awesome. So it was one of the first things she did in China. You know, first trip to Asia, I think. Well, definitely first trip to China and one of the first thing she did was come along and watch me talk about her, which is quite cool.
CD: I assume she felt that was a gift and not a punishment?
TC: Yeah [laughs] she loved it. We had a lovely chat afterwards and she was like a little celebrity after that as well because people just kept coming up to her like, “Oh my god! such an amazing story!”
And wanted to hear more about living in Zimabwe and things like that, so I think it was quite a cool and surreal introduction for her off the back of 14-hour flight.
CD: What was the conversation like with your mom after she heard it, what was her reaction?
TC: I mean, she's just a pretty cool woman, she takes everything in stride and so...so, yeah, you could tell she was just full of happiness, to be able to be there to see me. In fact actually on the way to the studio, I was on the phone to her, because we hadn't spoken in a while and I said I’m on my way to record a podcast. And she was like “Oh, that’s lovely! Does that mean I get to hear it again?”
And so she was super pumped, she really loved it. And it was the best way to sort of kick off our two week holiday in China.
CD: Yeah. Did either of you learn anything new about the story that you didn't know before having that experience?
TC: I don't...yeah...I had to ask my Mom a lot about, what it was like for her moving to Zimbabwe, which I'd never really properly asked her before. I think we never really had that conversation or in any great depth at least. So that was really cool, just getting her to relive all of that, as well, because I guess, it's not the thing that comes up all the time as well, so it's fun for her to reminisce.
CD: Tendayi, do you have a motto that you go by...or any advice that you could impart on our audience?
TC: I don't have anything that I repeat to myself over and over in the mirror before I start the day. No mantras. But I guess I do try to make sure that my default setting is openness and just acceptance of whatever is going to happen. Take it in stride, be open to new experiences and new people, new places. And I guess if you approach life that way, it's quite hard to get knocked sideways, by the different weird things that life will definitely have in store for you.
CD: I am so glad that you came and talked to us, as I said, your story...I mean, not just a highlight for me, but there have been multiple people who have told me either that your story really resonated with them for one reason or another, or were just so blown away by the way you told it.
TC: Well, I’m really happy to have the experience and really happy to be here with you.
CD: A special thanks to Tendayi Chivero for sharing his story with us. Today's episode featured clips from his story but you can listen to the full version at www.unravelstorytelling.com.
This podcast is produced and edited by Sarah Boorboor with original music and post-production by Ricardo Valdez. We're recording in the Nowness Studio in the city of surprises, Shanghai. I'm your host and the founder of Unravel, Clara Davis. Thanks for being a part of our story.
Next week on Unravel hear Justin Hsu and one of the founders of ShanghaiPride, Charlene Lui talk about how Pride made its way to China.
Justine Hsu: It was really that moment where I saw...wow, these people are grown-up adults living grown-up adult lives with people that understand them and support them and they just happen to be gay..
Show Notes: Robert Mugabe served as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe from 1980 to 1987 and then as President from 1987 to 2017. In 2017, Robert Mugabe was removed from power by a coup d'etat. Clarification from the Storyteller: If you're talking about RUGBY teams (where north and south of Ireland play as one), he'll probably go for Ireland. But if Ireland was playing Zimbabwe, he'd probably go for Zimbabwe.