Calling Australia home: Family finds a purple patch amid Brisbane’s jacarandas

Thuthuka Manasa immediately felt at home when he arrived in Australia with his young family in October 2011.

Harriet Swatman and Thuthuka Manasa with their sons Matobo and Magnus at St Lucia in Brisbane. Picture: Glenn Hunt

Seas of purple jacaranda flowers are some of Thuthuka Manasa’s most vivid memories from his childhood in Zimbabwe.

The trees lined the streets of the city of Bulawayo, spaced no more than 10m apart. Every spring, the jacarandas bloomed, their flowers then falling to create blankets of brilliant purple “that reached up to the sky”.

It is one reason why he immediately felt at home when he arrived in Australia with his young family in October 2011.

“There were a lot of jacarandas there — it was purple above and completely purple below. That is pretty vivid from when I was young,” he said. “We even had tall gum trees.”

Zimbabwe was in its prime in the 1980s. It had been liberated from British rule at the beginning of the decade, education systems were re-established and the Zimbabwean dollar was on par with that of the US.

Born in Denmark to a Danish mother and Zimbabwean father, Mr Manasa moved to his pat­ernal homeland at the age of six.

Australia’s laid-back and welcoming nature reminds him of those carefree days, playing in the streets and running amok as only kids do.

He and his wife, Harriet Swatman, had never planned to move here. They were living in London when they met at a bar in 2004, bonding over a shared love of 1970s funk music.

They married in 2009 and welcomed their first son soon after, before throwing caution to the wind and moving to Sydney after Mr Manasa, who works in financial modelling at Price­Waterhouse Cooper, was offered an 18-month secondment.

While he was quickly smitten with Australia, Ms Swatman said her relationship took longer to bloom. The “bookish” PR specialist saw Australia as extreme sports, sun and dangerous animals, the polar opposite to what she enjoyed.

As time went on, she found herself enamoured by the vibrancy of the mundane and the rich literary offerings.

“I fell in love with the landscape and lights. London is dull, everything feels like it is on half dimmers. But the lights here are so bright, the flowers and plants are as well,” Harriet said.

“I worked at the University of Queensland for a bit. I had no idea about Australia’s literature and poetry and indigenous art and fell in love with it.”

The family now lives in Brisbane with its sea of jacaranda trees with Matobo, 9, and Magnus, 4.

Last year, Mr Manasa was made a partner at PwC and upon realising Australia was likely to be their forever home, the family took citizenship tests and they are awaiting the ceremony.

“Becoming a citizen was a no-brainer,” he said.

“My dad visited over Christmas and he had forgotten there were so many jacarandas here in Australia. Even he said it definitely felt like home.”