I walked along a leafy street this afternoon, in Medellin, taking in the splendour of the trees and buildings around me. A young lady passed me on the pavement. "Hola" she said.
"Hola" I replied.
I crossed the road some moments later and noticed that she was behind me. She said something in Spanish. I stopped. "Inglese solomente", I said to her, holding my hands up in embarrassment. She looked at me blankly so I pulled out my phone and got onto Google translate.
"Where are you going?" She tapped into it.
"I'm finding lunch", I replied.
She said nothing in response so I continued on. But she followed me once more and then took the phone from my hand as I strode and tapped something into the interface. "Do you want sexual services?"
I walked on. "No", I laughed.
Still she followed me. Eventually I stopped and faced her. "What are you doing? Where are your parents? You look like you're about 17 for godsakes!" She looked at the floor and said nothing. "argh, this is frustrating!" I thought, as I tapped what I'd just shouted into Google translate.
She took the phone. "Venezuela." We began passing messages back and forth.
"It's dangerous to walk around streets having sex with random people. You can get hurt. You can catch diseases."
"It's because of economic problems in Venezuela."
"I'm going now, I need to get lunch."
"I can take you to a good restaurant."
"No", I said. "I've already got a place to go to." I walked off and then checked over my shoulder some metres ahead. She was in the distance moving in the same direction as me. Eventually I found the place I was looking for and sat down at a table. Seconds later she was next to me. "Are you joining me for lunch, or something?" I wrote.
She nodded and looked at me like she was Puss and Boots from Shrek.
"Argh!" I thought. "There I go, minding my own business, and the next thing I'm buying lunch for a prostitute."
I thought about shewing her away. But the thought of doing so suddenly felt a bit like strangling a kitten. The waiter brought us a menu. I tapped into my phone, "Where are your parents?"
She didn't answer. Instead she asked me how old I was.
"36"
"22" she responded.
"When are you going back home?"
She pulled a ticket from her bag and pointed to a line that said, "Medellin --> Caracas", in about two month's time.
"Do you have children?"
"Yes. One. He's 3 years old". She pulled out a picture of him. He was an adorable boy with the same kind of spontaneous joyful look as my nephew. A big smile and sparkly brown eyes.
"What's his name?"
"Alexander"
"Who looks after him?"
"His godmother"
I thought as she talked that I detected a tear, but then wondered whether that was my imagination. It struck me at that moment that I was surprised that she was crying; that I was surprised that she had the full range of human feelings. Why had I subconsciously thought that she mightn't?
"Don't you know you can get hurt doing what you do? Can't you get another kind of job?"
"It's because of the economic problems in Venezuela" she replied, again.
And then I felt like an idiot. How the hell would I know what jobs she could or couldn't get? Why would she be in Colombia, hundreds of km from her child, if she had the option to be home? "Shut up already, Eastwood", I thought.
And, of course, those of us from Zim have always been familiar with economic migration of sorts. How many of us had to leave our homes? How many of us found it unpleasant, lonely, uprooting, alienating? And yet we worked cushy jobs in full time employment in decent countries. We hadn't had to sell sex to strangers as illegal aliens in banana republics.
The food came. She tucked into her salmon dish like she hadn't eaten for some time. "Are you married?" She wrote to me.
"No"
"Why?" she asked.
"Why?" I thought. "What the hell is this? Some kind of 20-questions-prostitute-power-half-hour-radio talk show?"
The immediate dialogue in my head went something like this; "it's complicated. I mean, once, long ago, my ex-girlfriend of two years turned up on my doorstep in Zimbabwe and asked me to marry her. And I really wanted to, but couldn't for all kinds of reasons that I won't go into because I hardly know you form a bar of soap; I mean you're a prostitute I've just randomly found myself having lunch with for god-sakes, and in any case, what I've just said is the kind of thing that would likely get badly lost-in-translation on Google."
"I haven't met the right woman", I eventually wrote. "And I also want to be ready in myself for the responsibility of it. And some women can be terrifying."
She burst into laughter when she read that.
And then I thought, "dude, why did you even say that? I mean you're not really that terrified of women, are you? Maybe just the crazy-bitch variety who try to panel-beat you into a better person with such implements as blow torches, hammers and badzas. And I don't even go anywhere near crazies like that anymore. And how stupid to even mention something like fear to someone who is likely traumatised by genuine violence. You really need to get on top of this casual lunch-time-with prostitutes banter, Eastwood."
"Don't worry, you're hansom" she wrote. "One day you'll find someone nice!"
"Thanks, let's hope so!"
I finished my chicken and then wrote, "If you could choose what to do in life, what would you be?"
She seemed to think for a moment. "It doesn't matter, so long as I can look after Alexander."
Her words at once reminded me how immensely middle class and lucky I was; of how I have been indulged with choice at every stage of my life, sometimes to the point of anxiety. "Hmm, should I take that postdoc at Cambridge? Or should I return to Zimbabwe? Or then again, wouldn't it be fun to run my own business at this stage of my life, at least, for a while?" Bad feelings swept over me. I felt almost dirty for allowing our worlds to meet when they were so different. It felt some how horribly dishonest. "Oh goodness", I thought, "I'm one of them; one of those leftwing trustafarians who fraternises with the masses."
I asked for the bill. "Thank you", she wrote. "Con gusto", I said as I got up and walked away. But once again she followed me. We passed a cash machine and she tugged on my arm to stop. She went into the cash booth for some minutes. When she came out I realised from her body language that she had likely hoped to contribute something to the meal, but then found she couldn't. "It's okay", I wrote. "You don't need to give me anything."
We walked on. At the road to my hostel I stopped and pointed to where I had to go. She pointed in another direction. I held out my hand to shake her's. But she instead reached up and grabbed my face with both her hands and kissed me on the cheek. I had a momentary and overwhelming desire to protect her from all the evils of the world, to make sure that she and her child would some how be safe. And then I felt that crushing (and unfortunately, all too familiar) sense of helplessness that comes from knowing that a situation is much bigger than you.
Later that evening I received a whatsapp message. It was from her. I realised she must have messaged herself from my phone earlier. "Can I see you?" she asked.
"That unfortunately won't be possible", I said. "I'm going back to my home country today. All the best for your and Alexander's future."
