HOUSE SHARES

I first arrived in the UK at the tender age of 18 and moved into a small house-share with friends from Zim. The saying ‘you never know someone till you’ve lived with them’ has never rung more true.

I landed in London having been given various warnings about the people I would meet. My particular favourite was “don’t look at any one in the tube.. you will get stabbed”. In reality I should have been warned about the people I was to live with. Having come from a small town and lived a fairly sheltered life my new home was a huge shock to the system.

We moved into a third floor, ex-council apartment, near Bethnal Green station. There were no elevators, a prevalent smell of piss along every corridor and a huge sign on the stairs requesting ‘NO SPITTING’. Independence!

Mud Island, as we affectionately refer to England, proved to be harder to crack than initially thought. As I was so young, with no work experience, I really struggled to find a job. My housemates, all having arrived at the same time did not fare much better. We were all doing various odd temping jobs bringing in enough to pay the bills but not much more.

Our one housemate, S, used to work extremely odd hours. Sleeping all day, working all night. To my naïve mind this was nothing so abnormal.. I mean, this is London. One fine day my other sharer ‘A’ turned to me and said… ‘you know she is a prossie don’t you?’. Truthfully, I did not. It never occurred to me that someone I had been friends with in Zimbabwe would turn out to be a street walker! A went on to explain that she had been offered a room by one of her punters for no rent ‘merely a blowjob a week’! Hmmm.

Anyway, about this time I had to go home for my brother’s wedding. I had only been in the UK about two months and landed in sunny Zim in a bit of a state. One my first evening home with my parents and brother I explained that I was broke and couldn’t get work.

My brother looked at me and said ‘How have you managed to spend all your money’, at which stage I burst into tears and said …

“I’m living with a prostitute!”

I am glad to say things have vastly improved since then!!