Wednesday, October 31, 2012

a review of Novuyo Rosa Tshuma's 'Shadows'


(picture: Novuyo reads from her 'Shadows' at book launch)

 Title:Shadows, Author: Novuyo Rosa Tshuma
Published in 2012 by Kushinda, pp95. isbn: 978-0-9571420-1-5

 As this novella begins, Mpho (the narrator) is already steeped in being who he is; a man on a sharp decline. He can never go up. His very first wish, which is the first sentence in this book, is: ‘I want to be alone.’ But he cannot be alone in a populous and seething Bulawayo township.

Mpho does not and may not know who his father is. Mpho does not love his mother; an ageing-nearly-out-of-business and sickly prostitute. Sometimes he watches through the key hole as she is being laid. He has already taken his mother’s prostitute friend, Holly to bed (during a freak sexual storm). Holly cannot wait to have some more from Mpho. This symbolically incestuous act stays with Mpho up to the end. He is going out with Holly’s daughter, Nomsa whom he beds at will. He desires her the way one desires to perform an irresistible ablution. Mpho drops out from a lucrative Chemical Engineering degree at NUST after a student’s riot.
 
Mpho smokes mbanje and only when he is like that, does he see the political and spiritual turmoil in his country more clearly. He writes very desperate poems and uses his brush to paint pictures of death and doom. Mpho has no clear political ideals besides wishing to be happy. He attends both ruling party and oppositional party rallies interchangeably (for the abundant food and t-shirts). That makes his subsequent arrest and harassment misplaced and unjustifiable. The only release available to him towards the end is the hope to meet his dead mother ‘in dark places.’
 
At some point, he leaves behind his mother’s corpse decomposing in the morgue and skips the boarder into South Africa. Unlike the other Zimbabweans who take this archetypal route, Mpho is not in search of a job. He is only after Nomsa, the love of his life. He cannot work. Mention of a job riles and makes him bitter. He eventually learns, like the other stock characters, in Christopher Mlalazi’s Many Rivers and Brian Chikwava’s Harare North, that whilst Zimbabwe is in inimitable turmoil, there is necessarily no sweetness abroad for the unwanted Zimbabweans. Mpho eventually returns home to be hounded relentlessly by both the incognito spirit of his mother and the police.

Here is a tale about a dog that chases its unwanted tail, but never hoping to catch it. I have come across similar characters-in-constant-decline in Orlando Patterson's The Children of Sysiphus and Marechera's The House of Hunger. Rasta, the mbanje intoxicated artist at the Bulawayo gallery summarises it all: ‘I am coming my man…Forever coming. I never reach the place where I am going. And this is the whole point. To be forever coming.’
 
This does not mean that this is a depressing book. Far from it! This story is consistently underlain by a satiric comic strain. We are invited to laugh when we should be crying.
 
The descriptions of especially female characters could be the most convincing attributes of Novuyo Tshuma. This book is a startling gallery of women’s images: ‘Holly is a piece of work. Her face is yellow; not a natural from having caramel skin, but a jaundiced yellow from all the lightening creams she uses. The rest of her body is dark. It is a frightening contrast; an oval yellow face and then brown from the neck going down. Brown ears. Brown spots on her yellow forehead. Her weave is a huge blonde coronation that dominates her head. She lights a cigarette.’

And: ‘Mama at dindindi. She is caught by the camera in the middle of a dance. She is halfway to the ground, as though she is squatting. Her bum sticks out behind her. She is gazing over her shoulder at it, as though to make sure it sticks out in the right way. In her hand is a bottle of Black Label. She has a perm on her head, and huge earrings that dangle all the way to her shoulders. Her lips are pulled into a pout, something that can be considered sultry and seductive…There she is getting down. The people have stopped to watch her. They are cheering. She pouts and breaks into the sweetest laughter you ever heard. And there she is, caught in timelessness in a beautiful photograph.’
 
And: ‘A fat woman beckons me. She is standing by the side of the pavement, leaning against Fazak Store. There is a careless wealth in the way in which her doek slops over her shaved head. A wealth that allows her to tear at a piece of Chicken inn thigh, shovel the meat in with a chubby finger and chew with her mouth wide open for us all to see exactly how well this meat slides down her throat… She swings her bulky frame this-a-way-and-that-a-way as she hisses at us the passers-by. Her voice throws a rhythm into the air that matches her pendulum movements. Her pockets bulge with the much coveted forex.’
 
Tshuma’s debut is a second novel by a Zimbabwean going by the title 'Shadows.' Chenjerai Hove has a novel, Shadows, published in 1991. Novuyo Rosa Tshuma is an award-winning short fiction writer from Zimbabwe. She was the winner of the Intwasa Short Story Competition 2009. Currently, she is pursuing her studies at the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa.

 + Reviewed by Memory Chirere

 

Thursday, October 25, 2012

The story of Chiyadzwa diamonds in fiction


Title: Gweja Nyumwawo, Author: Reason Kufonya
Publisher: Lleemon Publishers, Harare, 2010, pp104
ISBN: 978-07974-4397-6

Reason Kufonya’s debut novel, Gweja Nyumwawo, covers an important gap in Zimbabwean fiction. 

This is the first long fictional work on the goings on during the initial diamond rush in Chiadzwa - Marange diamond fields, a period before government intervention. It is also important to note that the author himself comes from South East Zimbabwe.
Then Marange diamond fields were an area of widespread small-scale diamond production in Chiadzwa, Mutare West, Zimbabwe. As a result, the word Chiadzwa is now associated with the recent diamond rush in Zimbabwe. It all began about 2006 and accelerated tremendously to legendary proportions. By mid-December 2006, around 10,000 illegal miners from all over Zimbabwe and abroad were working very small plots at Marange, and an immediate water, sanitation and housing crisis developed. The miners initially sold their diamonds to the government, but a black market rapidly developed, offering better prices. Gradually the government took over, following subsequent running battles with these illegal miners.

The grapevine in Zimbabwe has many juicy stories from the Chiadzwa diamond rush but most of these stories have largely remained oral. Mistaken Chipikiri is involved in a fight with one of his teachers at Mashoko Mission, Bikita. He is incorrigible and headstrong. Eventually he abandons Form six and decides to hitch hike to nearby Chiadzwa, hoping to find diamonds and make a shorter cut into life.

This becomes a jump into the dark and what he learns, we also learn through this book which keeps you at the edge of a cliff. To read this novel is to walk through a horrific dream. When you finally close it, you want a mental holiday!

Parts of this adventure tale, however, may remind you of TK Tsodzo's Pafunge, a novel of 1972 whose use of the hilarious has no match in Zimbabwean fiction. Gweja Nyumwawo  also extends the Shona vocabulary itself, capturing the language used in the community of these petty diamond miners.

For instance; the word Gweja stands for ‘illegal small time diamond miner.’ Gweja Nyumwawo! (illegal miner beware!) is a common call amongst these hounded miners on noticing that an unsuspecting colleague is about to be pounced upon by the security forces. Gwejerine is the female version of gweja. Gwejambuya refers to an old female miner. Gwejasekuru stands for the old female miner.

Kuherereswa means to be chased by the security forces. There is usually a lot of stampede. Dzemabhinya refers marijuana that the gwejas smoke to have courage. Munda means the diamond field itself. Zvinhu zvakafudhubhaiwa means food that is cooked for sale and looks very appetising. And there are various terms for diamond. Ngoda stands for the ordinary diamond. Ngoda-girazidombo is the diamond of a higher value than the former. Then clear glass refers to diamond of the highest value.

The gwejas even come up with slogans and songs in the fashion of political parties. They are conscious of themselves as a type. Sadly, they have no capacity to see the matter beyond the individual. The author follows a thin thread, investigating how one unruly boy tries to come to terms with his desire for cash and cargo. He is caught up in a matter whose extend he cannot adequately comprehend.

Here, the law of the jungle applies. There is a wide range of artisans serving the illegal mining community. Preachers, healers, prostitutes, fortune tellers and diamond buyers crisscross the bush. At one moment a woman gives birth to a baby and all the women cordon off the maternity spot. Mistaken Chipikiri bumps into his former teacher who is digging for diamonds and the master pleads with his former pupil not to take the story back home where he is a respectable member of the community.
Mistaken Chipikiri discovers that the miners operate in numerous syndicates. These are small groups of vigilantes around certain war hardened fighters. The groups defend themselves against both the police and rival groups. They are responsible for ferrying home dead bodies, when colleagues fall by the way.There are such groups as Wagerwa Wagerwa (which means let the weak suffer) a group that Mistaken Chipikiri joins. The men in this group dare the police and soldiers on the field and their ‘wives’ do the domestic chores at the base which is often in the rear. Eventually the loot is shared equally amongst the group and some track back home to buy cattle and property. Chipikiri’s group get to the point of even buying a car!
 

There is also another group called Unemployment Benefit which is led by Dhiredhi who is a terror in this community. He collects taxes and protection fees. He is also ready to stab anyone who crosses his path. In one moment of madness, he tears apart a whole police dog with bare hands. Whenever he earns money, he retreats to Birchenough Bridge or Nyika growth point to be merry, returning only when he is broke. 

A member of this group says: ‘Mari yokwaChiyadzwa inongoda kudyiwa nemativi ose okudya nawo mari... Mari yakadai haidi vane musoro, ukatenga mombe dzinozongopera kufa nechirwere. Ukaroora mukadzi anotorwa nechikomba chaunonwa nacho doro. Ukatenga mota inoita tsaona. Ukatenga hembe dzinobiwa nembavha dzakayanikwa…Ukabhadharira mwana chikoro anofoira…’ Money from selling the Chiyadzwa diamonds is cursed. It is only good for spending and not for clear plans. If you buy cattle with it, they eventually die. If you pay lobola, the wife goes away with another man. If you buy a car, it eventually crushes. If you buy clothes, they are eventually stolen from the washing line. If you pay fees for your child, he fails his exams…

These characters seem to fly from the page because their desires are real and their follies universal.

This story is a must read for government officials, sociologists, psychologists, miners and others. Although it is clear that Reason Kufonya was looking for a clean moralist exit, what is clear is that if we are to benefit from our resources, we need a collective, orderly and nuanced approach. The gweja character in this story dramatises our primitive desire to snatch, run and eat behind the bushes.
+Reviewed by Memory Chirere
 

Monday, October 22, 2012

exploring Chibhasikoro and Borrowdale dance routines of Zimbabwe


                                  an analysis By Jairos Gonye
Chibhasikoro  and borrowdale dance routines have been the most fascinating dance features in  Zimbabwe since Independence  in 1980. Chibhasikoro is a dance apparently popular with farm and growth point settings and involves peculiar moves resembling a bicycle rider’s pedalling strokes. Borrowdale is originally a ghetto dance whose popular moves seem to imitate those of a horse rider and the horse as seen competing at the well known and affluent Borrowdale Race-course in Harare.
The chibhasikoro and borrowdale  moves, respectively, are interpreted  as reminiscent of the ‘cargo cult’ whereby African  dancers, in their want, theatrically  denote their wish to ride bicycles and horses while connoting underlying desires to have improved social and economic status. Both dances seem to be enacted all over Zimbabwe and unlike the traditional socio-cultural-specific dances (mbakumba, jerusarema or muchongoyo), Chibhasikoro and borrowdale are  more national rather than ethnic. Both dances are viewed as social, psychological and entertainment tools of communication.

Background:
In colonial Rhodesia farm settlements where the largely dispossessed Africans sojourned, the farm shop and beer hall turned into cultural exchange and entertainment centres after a long day of farming. In particular, community-produced dancers and musicians would perform for social entertainment on the farms during weeknights and for commercial purposes in towns during weekends. Among the popular names were; Somanje, Chimbetu and Tazvida,  from Marondera, Chegutu  and  Masvingo farms, respectively. Their 1980’s  musical compositions were a mixture of;  jiti,  sungura and chachacha and they experienced a simultaneous rise with the chibhasikoro dance.

 Chibhasikoro dance:
Considerable  energy is expended with dancers using all their body zones. Dancers exhibit exceptional footwork, dexterously stepping their feet forwards and backwards at a rapid alternate pace like cyclists, while they simultaneously mimick the action of  throwing morsels (of sadza?)in their mouths.
The dancers have their upper waists loosely and obliquely pivoted to allow free shaking of the hips and buttocks. Intricate moves; performed with legs bent in a crouching fashion, reveal the dancers’ athletic agility. Their upper bodies produce several gestures and moves that are in sync with the movements of the lower half. Hands stretch out to imaginary bicycle handle bars. Bars; which freely dissolve into automobile gears.

 The dancers gesture with their hands, chins, hips and foreheads; as if in response to statements that the nimble feet utter.  They, bend slightly forward, scan the audience, and then make four or so simultaneous sweeping moves with both left forearms and lower left legs, before switching to the other half. To sign off his performance, a male dancer falls over on his back, supported by a fully rotating bicycle wheel on his forehead while his feet, pelvis and belly, all together performing some fancy tricks. The female dance partner (in turn,)takes the rotating wheel, balance it on her hip, and then simulates a sexual act, gyrating her waist, before dashing into her partner’s embrace.

 Unbundling Chibhasikoro:
Despite their visibly affluent status in a country where the majority was poor, most white farmers had gained notoriety for rewarding even their most loyal retirees nothing above the bicycle for pension. A non-dancer said to me, “The  chibhasikoro moves echo the intentions of the traditional ritual dance, the itch to ask for rain, harvests, growth and protection of family.”  

 The interviewee added, “In dancing chibhasikoro,  eyes fixed on a distant outer future, dancers are communing with their ancestors and God to grant their present requests such as bicycles and food.” Such utterances confirm people’s conferment of meaning to dance, and a general appreciation of its communication and ritual value.

 A male interviewee substantiated my views about the growth and transformation of chibhasikoro by asserting that initially, chibhasikoro was a masculine beer hall dance. Currently, it being gradually accepted socially, with women partaking in it. A female dancer explained the origins and character of chibhasikoro thus: “Expert dancers actually own one or two bicycle wheels; either one rim with, or one rim without spokes and a gear that they use at certain stages of the bicycle dance. The use of the wheel is reminiscent of the use of the small axe, ‘gano’ by traditional dancers. Even for those without the kit, their basic move is the miming of the cyclist.

 Chibhasikoro entered the city with rural to urban migrants, getting renewed a little by adding the dance swings that appear like the dancer is changing the gears of a car, turning and accelerating. This indicates the increasing and shifting needs of the poor.”

 Evidence suggests that chibhasikoro originated in the commercial farmlands of Zimbabwe, but migrated to urban centers together with the drifting dancers, musicians and general workers seeking better fortunes there. The rate of broadcast of chibhasikoro across Zimbabwe increased with the forced migrations following the 2000 onwards land redistributions.

 Borrowdale dance:
The dancer’s basic moves depend more on nimbleness of  legs than the pelvis. His moves consist of galloping steps, unlike the shuffling pedals of chibhasikoro. (Imagine a horse galloping at one place!) In vertical posture, the dancer’s body is supported on a leg at a given time. The other leg is bent at knee- level and only beginning to touch the ground. From the waist upwards, his torsos is slightly tipped forward. The dancer hangs his arms in space, bent at the elbows at 130 degrees or so. Both hands are bent at right angles, at which they swam back and forth to symbolize the thrust of the horse’s gallop and the reins of the jockey.

The dance reaches a full gallop as the dancer pull out to the front and draw his second and last fingers out like ears of race horses, while the imaginary competitors chase on. The rider moves on coordinated feet, a hand intermittently urging the ‘horse’ on, facial gestures and head movements corroborating the energy sapping nature of the dance.

 Unbundling Borrowdale:
A noticeable trend after independence in 1980 was that some affluent blacks and African political heavyweights migrated to respectable and exclusive suburbs such as Borrowdale. The Borrowdale racecourse of Harare is the home of the best bet. But the majority of blacks remained in the ghettoes and could only dream of owning a house of their own.

With its origins in capitalist commerce, borrowdale dance was essentially performed to entertain the betting spectators at the racecourse. Yet, we see the poor urbanites harness the dance to communicate their pent up social grievances and wants, disguised in the wish to win the anual OK Grand Challenge prize.

A male dancer observed that, “Borrowdale is a poor ghetto man’s dance with a rich man’s name. It’s not by coincidence that dancers imitate horses competing at Borrowdale Racecourse. They also dream of one day owning a house in Borrowdale. It shows how people cling on to false hope in order to cope with poverty and want.”

The idea of imitation mentioned here is an expression of what is expected. If the early hunters’ hunting catch dance prefigured the desired catch, by analogy, punters bet because they expect to win and dancers dance borrowdale because they also want the  good life associated with Borrowdale suburb. This is reminiscent of the spirit shown in cargo cultism, particularly inspired by the difficult lifestyles the have-nots lead, while constantly being bombarded with possibility images.

 Chibhasikoro or borowdale?
As the dance entrenched itself within urban society, borrowdale seemed a complete overhaul of the Zimbabwean dancing stage, particularly an overwriting of chibhasikoro dance. If chibhasikoro appeared rather mechanistic and more staccato in speed of steps, turns and rhythm of movement, borrowdale is more refined, clearly smoother phrased and sometimes capable of moments of floating stretches.

 If chibhasikoro was more collective, calling for dancers to swing in proximity, borrowdale tends towards exhibitionism; beginning with many dancers, but ending with the overall best. An onlooker commented thus: “Borrowdale is the dance which members of different societies can groove down to with ease. Being  able to move your body to its intricate styles is actually an achievement. Politician, civil servant, white, all compete and chill with the poor worker, informal trader, vendor and tout in borrowdale .” The speaker suggests that there is a style ‘borrowdancers’ aspire to master, perfect and perform.

Once I achieved a keener appreciation of borrowdale from watching Alick Macheso go through it. Macheso looked such an innovative hybrid master mixer. In partnership with the flexible Franko Dhaka (Slomo), the duo performed some delightful kangaroo-like spring dances, twisting their thighs like razor wire. Then, having exhausted all the other competitors out of the borrowdale gallop, the pair apparently wrestled technique from technology. And, inscribing photo-finish technology unto themselves, they performed the dance in slow motion - conscious that they were creating an unprecedented choreography in Zimbabwe dance. On reflection, I saw that this was an instance of innovative improvisation of skills that guarantee beauty and perfection in whatever art form.

As if to say, our dance is as fast as the racing horse, therefore to appreciate it, you need to ‘slow motion’ the dance, Macheso and Slomo effectively obliterated the boundary between performed dance and technology. They sent cameramen rushing to shoot the ‘illusion’ of the ‘horses’ in slow motion. Though borrowdale dance is synonymous with Macheso, in Zimbabwe, it is generally agreed nobody owns a dance just as nobody owns the daily multiplying language.

 It has emerged that chibhasikoro and borrowdale dances are not only avenues of entertainment.  That entertainment is specifically offered in theatrical form; chibhasikoro and borrowdale dancers dramatizing the growth pointers’ and urbanites’ desires and wants to expectant spectators, respectively. 

Conclusion: The two dances have become as culturally meaningful as mbakumba, jerusarema or muchongoyo. The difference is that the two contemporary dances have no ethnic borders inscribing them unlike the three indigenous dances named above.

On the surface, chibhasikoro or borrowdale may denote joy, contentment and play acting, but underneath, they connote complex messages such as comments on farm labourers’ grievances with their lifestyles, urban struggles and the desire to lead less stultifying,  but fulfilling lives.

 +Jairos Gonye lectures in Business Communication at Great Zimbabwe University. Contacts: jairosgonye@yahoo.co.uk

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Unpacking the Copac draft constitution for writers and artists: a ZWA invite

The Zimbabwe Writers Association (ZWA) is inviting you to its next Harare members? bi-monthly meeting to be held at the British Council, 16 Cork Road, Belgravia, Harare (opposite the South African Embassy) on Saturday October 27, 2012 from 12:30 to 4:30pm.

This time the discussion topic is 'Unpacking the Copac draft constitution for writers and artists.' Prominent writer and lawyer; Dr. Petina Gappah, and UZ Law Professor; Lovemore Madhuku will each give a brief presentation before a fully-fledged discussion on this topical issue.

Those who were not at the last meeting are reminded to bring $10 membership fees. Remember: the major objective of ZWA is to bring together all willing individual writers of Zimbabwe in order to encourage creative writing, reading and publishing in all forms possible, conduct workshops, and provide for literary discussions. Zimbabwe Writers Association (ZWA) is the newest nationally inclusive writers Organization whose formation started in July 2010 leading to the AGM of June 4, 2011. It was fully registered with the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe in January 2011.
++Inserted by Tinashe Muchuri, Zwa secretary: 0733843455, zimbabwewriters@gmail.com
         (+above picture: some Zimbabwean writers)

Sunday, October 14, 2012

a review of Novuyo Rosa Tshuma's 'Shadows'

     (picture: Novuyo reads from her 'Shadows' at book launch)

Title:Shadows, Author: Novuyo Rosa Tshuma
Published in 2012 by Kushinda, pp95. isbn: 978-0-9571420-1-5

As this novella begins, Mpho (the narrator) is already steeped in being who he is; a man on a sharp decline. He can never go up. His very first wish, which is the first sentence in this book, is: ‘I want to be alone.’ But he cannot be alone in a populous and seething Bulawayo township.
Mpho does not and may not know who his father is. Mpho does not love his mother; an ageing-nearly-out-of-business and sickly prostitute. Sometimes he watches through the key hole as she is being laid. He has already taken his mother’s prostitute friend, Holly to bed (during a freak sexual storm). Holly cannot wait to have some more from Mpho. This symbolically incestuous act stays with Mpho up to the end. He is going out with Holly’s daughter, Nomsa whom he beds at will. He desires her the way one desires to perform an irresistible ablution. Mpho drops out from a lucrative Chemical Engineering degree at NUST after a student’s riot.

Mpho smokes mbanje and only when he is like that, does he see more clearly the political and spiritual degradation of his country. He writes very desperate poetry and uses his brush to paint pictures of death and doom. Mpho has no political ideals besides wishing to be happy. He attends both ruling party and oppositional party rallies interchangeably (for the abundant food and t-shirts). That makes his subsequent arrest and harassment misplaced and unjustifiable. The only release available to him towards the end is the hope to meet his dead mother ‘in dark places.’

At some point, he leaves behind his mother’s corpse decomposing in the morgue and skips the boarder into South Africa. Unlike the other Zimbabweans who take this archetypal route, Mpho is not in search of a job. He is only after Nomsa, the love of his life. He cannot work. Mention of a job riles and makes him bitter. He eventually learns, like the other stock characters, in Christopher Mlalazi’s Many Rivers and Brian Chikwava’s Harare North, that whilst Zimbabwe is in inimitable turmoil, there is necessarily no sweetness abroad for the unwanted Zimbabweans. Mpho eventually returns home to be hounded relentlessly by both the incognito spirit of his mother and the police.
Here is a tale about a dog that chases its unwanted tail, but never hoping to catch it. I have come across similar characters-in-constant-decline in Orlando Patterson's The Children of Sysiphus and Marechera's The House of Hunger. Rasta, the mbanje intoxicated artist at the Bulawayo gallery summarises it all: ‘I am coming my man…Forever coming. I never reach the place where I am going. And this is the whole point. To be forever coming.’

This does not mean that this is a depressing book. Far from it! This story is consistently underlain by a satiric comic strain. We are invited to laugh when we should be crying.

The descriptions of especially female characters could be the most convincing attributes of Novuyo Tshuma. This book is a startling gallery of women’s images: ‘Holly is a piece of work. Her face is yellow; not a natural from having caramel skin, but a jaundiced yellow from all the lightening creams she uses. The rest of her body is dark. It is a frightening contrast; an oval yellow face and then brown from the neck going down. Brown ears. Brown spots on her yellow forehead. Her weave is a huge blonde coronation that dominates her head. She lights a cigarette.’
And: ‘Mama at dindindi. She is caught by the camera in the middle of a dance. She is halfway to the ground, as though she is squatting. Her bum sticks out behind her. She is gazing over her shoulder at it, as though to make sure it sticks out in the right way. In her hand is a bottle of Black Label. She has a perm on her head, and huge earrings that dangle all the way to her shoulders. Her lips are pulled into a pout, something that can be considered sultry and seductive…There she is getting down. The people have stopped to watch her. They are cheering. She pouts and breaks into the sweetest laughter you ever heard. And there she is, caught in timelessness in a beautiful photograph.’

And: ‘A fat woman beckons me. She is standing by the side of the pavement, leaning against Fazak Store. There is a careless wealth in the way in which her doek slops over her shaved head. A wealth that allows her to tear at a piece of Chicken inn thigh, shovel the meat in with a chubby finger and chew with her mouth wide open for us all to see exactly how well this meat slides down her throat… She swings her bulky frame this-a-way-and-that-a-way as she hisses at us the passers-by. Her voice throws a rhythm into the air that matches her pendulum movements. Her pockets bulge with the much coveted forex.’

Tshuma’s debut is a second novel by a Zimbabwean going by the title 'Shadows.' Chenjerai Hove has a novel, Shadows, published in 1991. Novuyo Rosa Tshuma is an award-winning short fiction writer from Zimbabwe. She was the winner of the Intwasa Short Story Competition 2009. Currently, she is pursuing her studies at the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa.

+ Reviewed by Memory Chirere

Thursday, October 11, 2012

The 'smallest' and ‘forgotten' book of Solomon Mutswairo


The late prominent and first black generation author of Zimbabwe, Solomon Mutswairo’s opus is punctuated with some record making national and literary projects. There is Feso (1957) the first novel in the Shona language and the lyrics to ‘Simudzai Mureza weZimbabwe’, the anthem of the Republic of Zimbabwe, some novels and scholarly works. However, there is almost always the unconscious and unfortunate sidelining, of his ‘smallest’ book of 1982 called ‘Tagutapadare: Poems for children.’ Recently, I came across the green booklet in an old cupbpoard and returned to childhood.

The blurb to the 2000 Zimbabwe Publishing House version of the book describes the contents as ‘gamesongs.’ You notice that the African children’s song, if closely considered, is no little song. As the child sings these songs and play the subsequent games at various points in its life, it engages with its world in various fundamental ways.  The child learns to recognize itself as a stakeholder in the natural and social environment through naming and even interrogating its world.

Although in Tagutapadare, Mutswairo is largely a collector and recorder of Shona childhood song games, a project similar to A.C. Hodza’s Mitambo Yavasikana navakomana Pasichigare (1984), Mutswairo is solely responsible for the ways in which he has recalled and arranged these pieces. Despite this form of mediation, the songs remain identifiable with their origins. 

Once in a while we all remember the little songs that we sang as boys and girls in the village or the street where we grew but rarely do we remember to connect these songs and games with what we are today – worldviews, fortunes or otherwise. When you walk or work or take a morning shower, the songs erupt from the subconscious.  Waiting for the bus or performing an odd chore you catch yourself sing:

 

              ‘Kaposi Kapiri

              Karidza Mtengeni

              Seri kweGomo

              Chakachaka Tenderedza

               Mkakumi’

Solomon Mutswairo's English version that accompanies the Shona, lacks the rhyme and rhythm of the original but it nevertheless captures the raw concepts:

 

                ‘One and Two

                Mtengeni beats his drum

                Behind the hill

                 Chucking

                and putting it all together

                and ten is up’

 That poem is a story about Mtengeni, a local drum player whose beats on the drum counts up to ten as he adjusts to the notes of a more serious drumming before the singers join in.

With that song you learnt to count and identify objects even well before you went to primary school. The rhythm and the subsequent playful touch to the lyrics aided you on. You thought it was a game and that is where the catch was. The vitality of oral art is with its involvement with life that at some point, art is the vehicle towards life.

Counting is important and central to survival in all human societies. And in learning to count, aided by that song, you wanted to make sure, for instance, all the cattle were in the kraal before you retired for the day. You wanted to identify the specific row in the fields in which there was the one and only cucumber or water-melon plant. In oral society, rhythm is in fact part of administration.

If it was not ‘Kaposi kapiri,’ then it was ‘Motsiro Dendere’ which is even more musical and entertaining.  One could sing it as a game-song or as a working song:

 

                  ‘Motsiro

                  Dendere

                  Magaya

                  Mashangwe

                  Pirimhishwa

                  Pamuromo

         WeDyange

         Dyangirana

         Chindori

         Gume rawa’

Solomon Mutsvairo’s translation goes:

                                                                                     

                  ‘I whistle

                  In my nest

                  My maize stalk

                  Cross legged

                   With full throated ease

                  Like a bird’s

                  fledgeling

                  Closing the nest

                  And ten is up’

In that song the child empathises with the peace in the dove’s heart as it sits in its nest up a secure tree, cooing in the noon day sun, far away from harm. When you sing ‘Motsiro Dendere’, you become the beloved bird up in the nest. This allows the child to let go beyond its physical and emotional space and allowing release from the limitations of individuality. 

Some gamesongs captured by Mutswairo demonstrate the limitlessness of man’s quest to be more than just himself. For instance, ‘Kazuva wee duu’ (hey Mr. Sun) is sung to the sun by children as they bath or swim in a river or pool, imploring it to come out of its cover so that they could be warm. On a wintry day, the children’s chant will actually result in the sun momentarily appearing from behind the woolly clouds, glowing and suddenly warming up the environment.

But, of course the sun goes behind the clouds after a while and it is a common feature of Zimbabwe’s winter afternoons. On a summer day, the child sings ‘Mvura naya-naya tidye mupunga’ (Rain come so that we could have grain to eat), imploring the Skies to give Earth some water. There is a realisation by the children of the magical power of words, the will power that is infinite in prompting a specific reality at a given time. This teaches children that man and the elements are in harmony and that the world is as it is today and every time, partly because of man’s volition.

And when the new moon appears up in the sky, a bright little crescent, you and colleagues look up and greet it with song:

 

                             ‘Mwedzi wagara-Nhasi

                             Wagara kuna dendere

                              Dendere anamavara

                               Mavara anenge edzetse…’



                                     There is a new moon today

                                New up in the sky

                                Like a blotchy nest

                                With colours of a bull frog…’

 
Usually it is the children who see the new moon first in the African set up because they tend to run around the compound, bantering amongst themselves just before it becomes very dark.  When they sing greetings to the new moon, the elders stop whatever they are doing and rush out of the house to gaze at the new moon too.  This is because the moon is central in telling the time and for tying people to specific moments of the seasons.  As the children sing, the elders take note of how close or further away the rains, the cold and the harvests are. This mobilises the whole community and offers people opportunity to reflect on their relations with the elements and other men.  Some people look up into the sky and honestly tell the new moon their individual wishes or regrets:

 

                           ‘ Handichazviita, amai wee!

                            Zvokupisa mwana norupiza

                             Ptu! Ptu Denda rako iro

                             Ptu! Ptu!’

Mutswairo's translation:

 

                             ‘I won’t anymore, my mother

                             burn the child with bean pudding

                             spit! Spit!   There you are moon with your sickness.’

 

 But if the moon is struggling behind the clouds and therefore not brilliant, it is time to sing and play about dangers that always lark in the world.  You sing about beasts out in the forests in ‘Chinjiri Chiri Mugomo’:

 

‘Mushauri:        Vana vangu vapera

Vamwe:          necho chiri mugomo

Etc:                Vana vangu vapera hecho, hecho chauya’

 
Solomon Mutswairo’s translation goes:

            

           ‘ My children have all perished

            Chorus:  By the monster in the hill

            Etc: My children have all perished by the monster in the will’

 
There is no time to think that life is a safe venture.  You begin to realize from an early age, through song and dance that there are monsters, hurdles and problems in the real world.  You learn about the fragility of the human body and begin to prepare for life’s periodic sorrow and grief.

However, the liberation comes from the realization that your community will always stand by you.  As you sing  ‘Chinjiri Chiri Mugomo’, you hold on to one another in a single file and the leader tries to shield and protect ‘the children’, especially the last in line, from being caught by the child who represents the monster.

Then there are songs to register the excitement of the sense of sight.  There is no celebration in silence.  When crossing a stream or fetching water from a river, if a girl gets to see her beautiful face, she sings and dances:

 

‘Amai, ndakanaka, amai!

A! amai ndakanaka, amai!

Amai, ndakanaka amai!?

(Oh dear mother, how beautiful I look) This is my own recollection.’

 

Or, if it is August, and the wind is blowing, swaying the trees, one could burst out:

 

‘Miti inotepuka

                   Tepuka, tepuka

                    Miti inotepuka mumhepo’

                    (The trees are gently swaying in the wind)

 

There is also time to move the arms, the knees and the waist as you sing.  Standing out in the school grounds during break-time, girls stand in pairs and trios and celebrate the music in their own bodies.  They raise that their hands and clap in unison with their neighbours and the leader leads the way, naming the next activity:

 

                           ‘Mushauri: Chipikiri ngo!, ngo!

                           Vamwe:    Ngongongo,-o-o               

                         Mushauri:    Tamba uchidai, uchidai

                           Vamwe:  Uchidaidaidaidai-I!’

 

And as you watch from the classroom, (doing your corrections), you can single out the stiff jointed girls from the rhythmic ones.   You can hear the clapping and see the celebration of girlhood.  You can see a small community of budding women learning what friendship and camaraderie mean.

And when you are home, carrying your mother’s crying baby on your back, you sing it to sleep gradually, with a song about doves and nestlings.

                                                                                     

                         ‘Yanga iri njiva

                          Guu!

                          Nekana munyasi

                           Guu!

                           Kanokanga zviyo

                           Gu-u!

                            Zviyo zvavatete

                             Gu-u

                             Tsanga yangu yawa

                             Gu-u

                              NaM’kuyadenhe

                              Gu-u

                               Wagoiisepi

                                Gu-u

                                Kurwizi rukuru

                                Gu-u!’

 

(the dove does everything; roasting millet, looking after the young one and in my clumsiness, I dropped grain and got worried over it).

As you sing the baby (your own sibling) to sleep, you also sing to yourself.  The emotion of the song also silences the naughty child in you as well.

These songs teach the child, first, to move in tandem with its community and its norms. The songs also go beyond the plight of the individual child, sending one searching (unconsciously) for the centre that holds together; people, animals, seasons, the elements and the universe. Therefore the children’s story in our society is in song and not always narrated in the many children’s stories. And the story of society is in children’s songs. The child is not silent. And more important, the child inherits this song from the previous generation and breathes in it a new content and fresh perspectives.
 
Mutswairo’s activity of remembering these songs in the written form is important because this is one way of keeping alive the memory of society.
-By Memory Chirere