“Hey lady, haha.” The rich, deep African accent, complemented by the hearty laugh of someone who has seen life, slipped from the lips of a dark chocolate-skinned man. His smile was wise, the type that made his eyes sparkle and all of his features glow. The bubbling pot of his creation sent the aromatic flavors of what was cooking on the stove wafting through the air. I could hear the aggressive beating of the sturdy wooden spoon against the metal of the pot. I observed the meal of my culture. Sadza is the national dish of Zimbabwe, and the dinner that made me feel closer to Africa, a place I’d never been. My grandpa lived in a different state. I only see him once every one or two years. The time we shared together was so precious because we didn't have enough of it. I was such a curious child, eager to hear the next tale my grandpa would tell me, each with its own lesson. “Hey lady, let me tell you something, lady, this is what we used to eat in Africa…mmm… My family was poor; we used to eat sadza all the time.” These were the stories that followed me throughout my years.

“I grew up with so many people in the house, but we were very poor,” my grandpa recalled. I remember how he used to describe everything with such precise detail. Awe and curiosity filled me. Poverty was something so unknown to me; I was aware of it, but the fact that my grandfather had come from nothing and now had everything was fascinating. “Oh yes… I had to walk to school with no shoes! I didn’t get my first pair of shoes until I was around your age…” This was hard for my young brain to grasp. I was a middle schooler, and even though I had learned of his struggles in Africa, this was something I would never know. I had shoes and didn't walk to school, and my house had plenty of food. I had never known hunger; I had a fridge! My grandpa would often tell me this story throughout my life, showing how hard he worked to make it possible for me to enjoy this life.

When I grew older, he gave me more details about his life in Africa. “Hey lady, did you know I was alive during Apartheid?” I am now in high school, but at this time, I had never heard this story. He was arrested after staying past the Black curfew during Apartheid when he was nine. “Black people during Apartheid could only go up to a certain level of education. Most black people only went up…to high school…Education was really important to us because it was limited.”

Racism is something that I was taught to deal with before I even faced it. Even my name, Jaden, was given to me so I could not instantly be discriminated against for having a “black” name, a name that would reveal my heritage before meeting me, so that society could label me. My grandpa experienced this level of hatred and racism on a larger scale. It took me back to those moments connecting over Sadza, the visions of my grandpa flashing like a movie. I still have those stories with me in my heart. Poverty, systemic racism, and inequality, the lessons from my grandfather's accounts, but they weren’t tales of woe. My grandfather faced down those giants and made it in life, even being black, even being poor at the start. Showing me that if he could do it, I could too…“Tell me more grandpa!”

© Jaden. All rights reserved. If you are interested in quoting this story, contact the national team and we can put you in touch with the author’s teacher.