Childhood
Ruth was born in Murehwa, a small rural town 50 miles northeast of Zimbabwe’s capital Harare.
When Ruth came into this world, her mother was still in high school. Nobody knew her biological mother had been pregnant, so from the start, “Gogo” (Ruth’s grandmother), acted as her mom.
Gogo loved telling folk tales. A lot of her stories, common in Ruth’s culture, were about animals with superpowers. Gogo’s usual tales revolved around a baboon and a rabbit, and in every story, the rabbit outsmarts the baboon. Each time the story was recounted, the details would change a little bit, and she always took forever to get to the point.
“In America, kids have fairytale books, but for me, it was through storytelling. They forced you to imagine.” (audio below)
When Ruth thinks back to those early days when her grandmother told stories, she recalls the intensity of the stars in the sky. They didn’t have electricity, but there was fire. She would walk barefoot over the red soil to get water from the stream. It was a life of little routines.
Tragedies
Despite the positive memories of her grandmother, Ruth’s life had a tragic beginning. When Ruth was five, her mother died by suicide, and one month after that, Ruth’s only sister died from measles. After these tragedies, Ruth moved around between her mother’s siblings. Gogo tried her best to make sure everyone was friendly to Ruth, as she was often treated more like “the help” than a part of the family.
“I knew that I was so loved by this woman. I’ve had so many twists and turns in my life, but the grounding in my grandmother’s love is why I seem to be able to get through whatever.” (audio below)
Above: Ruth (on the right in red) at her cousin’s birthday. “I was serving them food – often treated like the help – exactly like Cinderella.”
Different
Ruth grew up in a culture with clearly defined gender roles, but she didn’t fit the mold. She remembers hearing from relatives that she must be cursed.
“I was aware from a very early age that I was different in how I liked to dress. I was such a tomboy. They would try to buy me dresses and skirts – but they would be left untouched. I would wear the same pair of shorts for weeks at a time. Family would visit from the rural areas. They would be there for a week without any idea that I was a girl.” (audio below)
Ruth remembers the deep high school crushes she had on women, but it wasn’t something she would ever admit. There was no representation of the LGBTIQ community in Zimbabwe at the time, so being a lesbian wasn’t something she even knew existed. Her aunt had a gay hairdresser, but nobody labeled him as “gay” – he just “existed.”
United Kingdom
In the late 1990s, Zimbabwe’s economy was collapsing, and many people were leaving. Ruth wanted to get out too, so two days after writing her high school exams in 1998, she was on a flight to England. Ruth thought it was a great opportunity, but when she arrived, the situation wasn’t as expected. She was essentially going to be doing housework for almost zero pay- they were exploiting her.
At 18, Ruth was young and vulnerable. She didn’t know she could have enrolled in Nursing School since Zimbabwe is a former British colony.
“When people lack information, they struggle when they shouldn’t.”
She managed to leave her “job” and went to work at a furniture shop. Eventually, she started doing “care work” – the common form of employment for Zimbabweans in England. Ruth began to send money back to Zimbabwe. She felt rich, but she didn’t feel accepted.
Nebraska
Ruth’s aunt connected her to a friend, who had a friend, and this is what brought her to South Omaha, Nebraska in July 1999 – on a visitor’s visa, but she didn’t plan on leaving.
Again things weren’t as she expected. This friend of a friend was a “troubled soul,” with a six-month-old baby that she expected Ruth to look after. Ruth felt stuck. Luckily this woman’s sister came by one day, noticed that Ruth wasn’t in a good place, and took Ruth to enroll in classes to become a Certified Nurse Assistant (CNA).
If Ruth had known, she would have applied to school right away and switched to an F1 Stu