In my line of work, I have crossed paths with computer programmers or as I like to call them, tech bros and gals, a time or two. I like to think of computer programmers as people who look at the world through black and white. Having worked with these guys, their whole thing sometimes feels like working out code, building features and debugging, everything else they outsource. Even their personal lives feel outsourced, watch football or movies or another singular hobby, and then do more programming. Ch’anzu our open gendered protagonist who goes by the pronouns zie/hir fits the bill to a tee.
It is quite clear when you first meet hir that zie has thrown hirself into work and everything else has been relegated to the side. But as the saying goes, all roads do come to an end, zie is laid off from hir job and on the same day hir marriage falls apart. Now, such type of events should not normally happen on the same day I mean cut a person some slack but sometimes when it rains it absolutely pours. This double whopper of events leaves hir feeing adrift but you get the sense that zie is not a quitter, yes zie might bury hir head in the sand sometimes, but zie normally tries to float above it all.
Prior to the two big life changes, Ch’anzu has been on autopilot and was cruising nicely without need for worry, zie has a job, an apartment, and a wife with whom zie is planning on having kids with, I mean what could go wrong? Well, a lot. When things eventually go south, zie finds hirself wondering where it all went wrong and without a job as a distraction, zie is forced to examine hir life in ways zie would rather avoid. We get to meet Aunt Maé who comes to check on hir, and we start to piece together our protagonist and the life circumstances that have led to this moment.
Regardless of hir world being torn apart, Ch’anzu is keen to keep it moving, zie has bills after all so zie applies for a job online not thinking anything will come out of it and finds hirself moving to Wagga Wagga, a place that can be described as the middle of nowhere. She has landed a job in Serengotti, a sanctuary of sorts for refugees, people who have seen the worst of humanity. In the Perks of Being a Wallflower, there is a line about how sometimes it feels wrong to say you have problems because others have it way worse. However, we all have problems, Ch’anzu might not be a migrant trying to rebuild hir life in a new country but zie has hir own fair share of problems. Zie is an orphan after all, raised by Aunt Maé whom it feels like had she not been around Ch’anzu and her twin Tex may have been swallowed by the world whole. But one would not be wrong to assume or believe that Tex has been swallowed by the world whole regardless.
I have always blamed Hollywood and books for my fantasy of thinking if things are not going well, I just need to move to another city or country and start over. Serengotti is right on brand with this line of thinking. I mean Ch’anzu gets a fresh start of sorts but all is not as it seems in Serengotti. Everybody has demons or djinns they are battling despite others’ outward appearance. Ch’anzu has hir own demons as well so she fits right in. Despite this commonality, the people do not necessarily warm up to her and she finds hirself wanting to run back to the familiar, a human trait we all know too well. Besides there is Basket who is still haunting hir all the way from Melbourne. As an African Australian, did all the years of racism scar hir so bad that it distorts the lens through which zie sees the world? One might wonder. But she cannot go back to Melbourne instead she goes to Sydney for a getaway, maybe seeing Scarlet will remind her of all the good in her former life but zie has changed.
Ch’anzu goes back to Wagga you have to say it twice with a renewed sense of purpose, zie has a job to fulfill after all, to build a program that will help the lives of the broken souls of Serengotti and zie is keen to do that. The beauty of Serengotti is that everything one needs is within reach but one can question if this is by design or the Australian authorities truly had not known what to do with people who had seen violence. So like a parent who thinks giving a child everything will make up for the emotional neglect decided to give the residents a semblance of paradise. Human beings by design have emotional needs and even Valarie, the lady who recruited Ch’anzu, has emotions despite outward appearances. Ch’anzu gets to see this firsthand during a time when zie is trying to recollect hirself. The new Ch’anzu decides to think nothing of it or is it because zie has a job again so zie would rather focus on that as always, one could wonder.
What I love about Serengotti is that you do not just get the perspective of Ch’anzu, we get to see the other side of the story from Tex, Ch’anzu’s twin whom Tau and Lau might reckon got the djinn when they were born, only that his djinn was to cause mischief as a way of processing his feelings. Everybody else sees him as an angry lost soul but he is simply trying to process the hand that life has dealt him. Perhaps this is not easy to do when you have a twin whom by all accounts seems to have hir life together. So he tries to compete with hir in ways that he feels equipped to do so and with mixed results. What Tex does not realise is that Ch’anzu is trying to do only what a sibling can, ensure that they both make it. Ch’anzu is faced with this realization when Serengotti’s perfect visage starts to fall apart and zie is made aware that zie holds some of the clues that have led to this. This reckoning forces hir to acknowledge things that zie probably might have not had zie remained safely ensconced in Melbourne.
In Serengotti, Ch’anzu finds hirself rebuilding hir life in ways that zie might not necessarily have wanted or hoped for but are very fulfilling as well. The community that once went out of its way to avoid hir embraces hir with loving arms when tragedy strikes, perhaps grief truly is the thing that unites us all. But should it be the only thing? We are all human after all despite our version and scale of problems. Ch’anzu is not a quitter and with Serengotti finally opening up to her, you know she is going to be alright.
Linda Mchawi
Linda Mchawi is a writer and editor from Lilongwe, Malawi.
