AT the beginning of August this year my wife and I went on a private visit to Britain, only to be confronted by what we thought was a hostile reception at Heathrow Airport.

The KLM flight that we took on a Friday evening passes through Lusaka, Zambia, and we were excited to have a Zambian passenger coming to sit with us in the plane as we wanted to hear what our neighbours thought about the results of the elections that had taken place in Zimbabwe.

We were excited that our fellow passenger beamed with congratulations for both VaMugabe and ZANU PF.

As the young man spoke Bemba, a language very similar to Shona, we even ended up singing the song ‘Zimbabwe ndeyeropa remadzibaba’ with him.

On arrival at Heathrow, we were joined by quite a number of fellow Zimbabweans and two more Zambians; and we were busy congratulating our two nations for their capability to hold free and fair elections.

Although the walk to the departure desk was quite long and winding, this did not bother us at all as it gave us an opportunity to also discuss the objectives of our own visits to that country.

I was surprised that although the adults said they were also visiting their family members, the young ones just brushed the issue aside as they preferred to talk about other things instead.

All went well for us all until we were in the queue for checking out of the airport.

There I came across something both surprising and annoying to both me and my much better half.

My wife submitted her passport and she was cleared to enter Britain without any hustle.

It was when I also submitted my diplomatic passport that I received a very surprisingly friendly response from the white youngish woman who was manning (or should I say ‘womaning’) the checkout desk.

Although I have always been aware of my handsomeness since I was a boy, I didn’t expect it to have such an effect on a young woman I was meeting for the first time.

On opening the passport she said, “Oh, I thought it was Mr Tis-van-garry! (Tsvangirai).”

I can’t quite remember how I responded, but she quickly got up with the passport and disappeared into the office behind her.

Then she surprised me by asking me who exactly I was and what my business in Britain was.

I was so surprised by my ‘strange lover’s’ new attitude that I concluded that I was not wanted in that country for some unknown reason.

But this in itself did not bother me much and I told my wife she could stay behind if that meant I was being sent back home.

But both of us wondered why she had called me ‘Mr Tis-van-garry’.

Then a male workmate of the young woman joined her and the two quickly resolved the matter between them.

The man then turned to me and asked, “So how is Zim-bwa-bwee after the elections?”

Thinking that the next thing I was going to hear from him was going to be a deportation order, I took the opportunity to praise my country and its leader as best I could under the circumstances.

To my great surprise, the murungu bade me farewell saying, “Good!

“So you’re a ‘Mug-a-bee’ man, eh?”

Then indicating the young woman he concluded, “She thought you were Mr ‘Tis-van-garry’.

“Bye Mr ‘T-so-d-so’ (Tsodzo)!

“Have a good stay in Britain!”

It was only then that my wife and I got to know who the young woman had mistaken me for.

I am sure the readers of this article will get it too.

All I can add is that as the person I was being mistaken for is actually a member of my extended family too.

I am aware that we have some common features in our appearance; although we are worlds apart in our socio-political ideologies.

As my visit to that country had nothing to do with the situation back home in Zimbabwe, when I later asked my friends and relatives working in that unattractive country what the reason for the young white woman’s clearly unfriendly attitude towards me could be, they told me that it must be because I was coming from a country where their own ally (I forget his name) had lost the elections and my red passport must have made them think that I was on a mission to tell the Zimbabwean Embassy in London about the Zimbabwean election results.

“But why should even that bother a mere desk girl?” I wondered aloud. And my friends and relatives’ response was a common, “Kwaaniko? Kungoda kukubhowai chete!”

My relatives and friends also explained to me that the British people were generally very xenophobic.

At first I didn’t quite understand what they meant by this, but it didn’t take me long to come across cases of blatant racial discrimination where I lived.

As I will explain in another article,

one of the cases had to do with the education system of that country and the other is about the operations of the British police.