Today it is the Cote d'Ivoire; yesterday it was Zimbabwe along with dozens of other countries in Africa whose people have lived through horror as those who would rule rampage and run amok in their bids for power. This is the particular story of one couple in Zimbabwe, Doug's parents, Lyn and Rosalind Rogers, now in their 60s and who stubbornly refuse to leave their land. They negotiate, endure and persevere in a situation that keeps escalating to what seems a foregone bad conclusion.
Before Zimbabwe, the country was Rhodesia, and the Rogers had lived in Africa for generations. His "white liberal parents.....had always despised the man they called Smithy" [Ian Smith who declared independence from Britain in 1965 in a last ditch effort to avoid black majority rule] and they had survived the subsequent war of black majority liberation which ended when Robert Mugabe came to power in 1979. Bob Marley and the Wailers performed at the the ceremony for Zimbabwean independence on April 18, 1980. Whites then comprised 5% of Rhodesia's population.
A soldier at Drifters reminisces with Doug: "I will never forget that day, Rogers junior. It was huge! I was 13 when I went to war--now I was 18. We had achieved! Can you believe it?"
"In his first two decades in power Mugabe did indeed do many great things, helping turn Zimbabwe into one of the most literate and productive nations in Africa. But now three decades on, that legacy was crumbling, and his government was lashing out at those he claimed were to blame--chiefly Britain, whites and their 'puppets' in the MDC." (MDC is the Movement for Democratic Change with Morgan Tsvangirai its leader.)
Doug's father rages; "Go back to Britain? I am not British! My people have been on this continent for 350 years! I never set foot out of Africa until I was 50 years old. My own mother never left it once.....My grandfather fought against the British in the f_______Boer War...I am not British. I am not British."
But he is white and therefore easy to blame as Zimbabwe comes apart and the government, in the guise of "homeland war veterans," begin demanding any land owned by whites. And it was not only the whites who were targeted; thousands of blacks suspected of supporting or known to have supported any political opposition were/are also victims.
More and more often the white farmers were forced to either leave or give up their farms to those who had no idea how to work these productive well-functioning farms which then became little more than squatter's camps. So far, Doug's parents have kept their property but the hold is tenuous. Zimbabwe is their home and always has been. They engage in various commercial enterprises just to survive. Eventually, they begin running a backpacker's camp called Drifters in the east of Zimbabwe, very near the Mozambique border, 180 miles southeast from Harare, the capitol. Thus the brilliant title of this book. Even Drifters goes through many permutations.
Doug becomes increasingly worried about his parents, makes several trips back home, and this is the book. It is funny, poignant, informative, complex... Of course, conditions in Zimbabwe are currently eclipsed by the amazing, more recent news from Africa, but this story continues and feel I have learned something about what has happened and actually is happening, always a good reason to read a book.
The cover is also perfect: A frog is submerged in clear water with just nose and bulging frog eyes above the surface. It could be the large albino frog that lived for years in the Rogers' farmhouse, on the kitchen counter no less.
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