Focus on Zimbabwe: Nervous Conditions (2)

Tambudzai:

While this is the central character of the book, I held on to her until this point because she puzzled, excited and reminded me of me so many times I felt dodgy and guilty. Tambu has (had) so much spirit and ambition, and did not mind her brother dying for her to achieve her dreams (not the part that reminds me of me). But Tambu’s sense of rebellion is mapped around a concept of progress that has been handed to her by circumstances. First, she sees the poverty in which her family exists, and is given ample opportunity to discover the other side of the coin through her observation of her uncle’s family. She is constantly comparing herself with those who are celebrated as being worthy, and questions why she herself has not been found so.

One has got to admire her determination when she makes that trip to the town centre to sell maize that she has painstakingly planted, even against Nhamo’s evil attempt to destroy what she had worked so had for. One has also got to admire how much she wants to get into school, for she is able to see that it is because of education that Babamukuru has been able to achieve all that she has. Of all the characters in the book, she is surprisingly the one who most resembles Babamukuru. She is a real rags-to-riches case, but has a whole lot of determination that drives her towards her goal. The author of The Secret and any Obamaniac would be proud of Tambu!!!!!!!!!!!

But Tambu, like Maiguru is a tragic figure. In all her determination, and in all her willingness to obey Baba, she is under-appreciated by him. He refuses to see her potential beyond the fact that she will get a good husband and be in a position to help the rest of her family. Also, and this is the part of her that most reminds me of me, she is quite uncritical of what is going on, and when she knows she should be critical, she struggles to push these thoughts to the back of her head. I say it reminds me of me because often, I found that fighting the system was so much harder, such hard work. It was often easier just sitting back and accepting what was going on.

No, I am not proud of this, but that is the truth. Often, you want to get there so badly, you are willing to ‘suffer’, punish yourself to reach there. Always, an invisible hand is swinging opportunities in front of you, and you have to humiliate yourself to get there. Sounds pathetic but that’s exactly what Tambudzai and to a large extent most of us have had to go through to get to where we are. But I do not necessarily blame myself for it, just like I do not blame Tambu. What were her options? Defying Babamukuru like Nyasha did is a luxury of course she could never have afforded! Only Nyasha, whose blood ties disabled Babamukuru’s powers had the audacity to challenge that blanket god-like power when no one else could.

Perhaps also, Tambu’s being a child also worked against her. Look at Lucia who countered Babamukuru all the way but still got what she wanted out of him.

I suppose the weakness of Tambudzai is even more tragic because she was helpless in her limited knowledge of what she could or could not do. Like an overwhelming power against her, she had to suffer an intense patriarchy to get to what she wanted.

Eventually, Tambudzai just suffers from the fate of ending up in a catholic boarding school. I remember going to a catholic boarding school, and some of those things that Tambudzai heard about these places are actually true. There were often young girls who were marked for entry into the convent. Their school fees were paid by the church and when they were ‘ready’ they would discreetly be recruited into the schools. It was always funny when some of them actually fell pregnant because that always meant the end of their careers in the nunnery and of course a huge disappointment on the part of the nuns. But maybe we are yet to uncover new forms of resistance!

One last focus on Tambudzai: her relationship with Babamukuru. Particularly that fateful day when she dared to say she did not want to be part of the wedding procession!!! Babamukuru’s generosity is finally and completely put to the test at that point: he begins by torturing Tambudzai with ways in which he had been generous to her, and Tambu can only stammer in reply. That GUILT that she feels at that point would be a source of interesting reflection. It is a guilt filled with fear, the fear of that invisible hand taking away everything you had ever dreamed of….

But in the end, just like in the case of all the other women, Babamukuru decides not to push it too far, because he knows deep down, Tambudzai is so much more than he had expected. However, he punishes her, because she dared to defy him, a god! The character of Tambudzai is therefore one of guilt, fear and most of all extreme punishment and humiliation that she has to endure just to get to where she wants to go! Mppph!

Nyasha:

I had to leave her for last. There is a book I read in my high school, it was a set book, chosen for purposes of being examined on it at the end of the year. I think it was called Mashetani, ‘The Devils’. The details of it are hazy now, but I remember someone who suffers from a nervous breakdown because he or was it a she could not understand why everyone was so readily accepting socialism when he could see through the evil behind the architecture. I think it was that. The book was written by a famous Tanzanian writer whose name I forget now, but it was a stunning book, the kind we should be reading more and more rather than watching sex and the city:-)

Anyway, what I got from that book reminded me of Nyasha, or is it that Nyasha reminded me of that book? Either way, it is with great sadness that I regard such characters, the geniuses who think ahead of their times, the intellectual who suffers because she can see beyond what is blanketing the truth. While the theme of the alienated intellectual is pretty common in African writing, it is still normal one of the most tragic characters.

Mohammed Said Abdallah. That is the name of the author of Mashetani. (Sorry, had to put that in).

Anyway, Nyasha is a beautiful creation. She says and identifies those aspects that are wrong with the system, the colonial and patriarchal systems. Unlike Tambu, she has the language and tenacity to identify these things and naturally falls out of favour with her father. However, the author refrains from using her forcefully as the voice of reason but uses her to explore the dilemma of the intellectual born way ahead of her time. In a tightly and unapologetically patriarchal society such as hers, clearly there’s no winning the war with Babamukuru and the rest of the men (and women, think of Tete), but she goes ahead and says what she thinks is right.

Unfortunately she has a nervous breakdown, and during her moments, it’s clear she takes issue with the system and how people are accepting what in her mind is poison to their society. That she is Babamukuru’s biggest critic should not go unnoticed. She criticizes the power of capitalism, male power, presence of white people, the way in which the system is all for consuming the minds of the natives. Perhaps the whole book is about her, and Tambu and their inner turmoil’s, as they are the two characters most explored in this regard.

I think I need to re-read the Wretched of the Earth before I undertake the arduous task of reading the sequel to this book, The Book of Not. Eish!

Focus on Zimbabwe: Nervous Conditions (1)

A lot has obviously been said about Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions (1988), with the immediate relationship to Franz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth (1963) possibly being the obvious beginning point. But given that I have promised to record my thoughts on every book I read this year (and enjoy), I will add to a large existing body of literature on the book.

My first reaction to Nervous Conditions was one of disappointment, not because it was a bad read, but because so much had been said about it, yet, I missed the immediate sense of greatness of the book. I had thought it told a melodramatic tale of suffering that would send me to uncontrollable levels of sadness – my immediate reaction? Nervous Conditions was actually a very ordinary book.

Ordinary in the sense that it told a story most of us African girls/ladies grew up with and still have to contend with. Ordinary in its pickiness of daily life. Ordinary as well, in its constant reference to pain and sadness we have felt and suffered. We who have grown up against the grain. Yes, ordinary.

Yet in its ordinariness, it was a great novel, full of things we all feel we should have said, captured out of our zigzagged histories. Yes, ordinary. So that in its great engagement with the afflictions of colonialism and patriarchy, it really was saying a story that is ours.

This review will be based on the characters of the novel, those who touched me, and realities I live and have to contend with.

Babamukuru:

My first choice, because I think beyond the patriarchal power he exercises that minimizes every other person, he was in fact a great man. Babamukuru represents to me, those Africans who followed the preaching of the White missionaries, “read hard and you will reap the rewards, you will get out of your abject poverty, and you will prosper. But in your prosperity, remember to use your education, to break the African yoke, the circular yoke of poverty. Use your education to save your family, and raise them above the conditions of their current living.”

Sounds familiar?

For most of us who have had the benefit of a good education, the reality is we do not always come from good economically stable families. We come from families full of loved ones who in spite of every effort, continue to remain where our parents were, never moving out of those cycles. Like Jeremiah, Babamukuru’s brother, there are those members of the family who do not even want to try and are content with grovelling for the money at every opportunity. Then there are those who have given up like Tambudzai’s mother. Then once in a while if you are lucky, there are the Lucias who do everything to get out, break free from the yoke. It is often an amazing moment for everyone, and especially for the one who wanted this to happen so badly, the one who resembles Baba. So in spite of his God like status, which goes against the grain of any decent feminist critic, one has to look at what Baba is after. One has to sympathize with what his family has to put up with, in order that Babamukuru’s family rises out of the Yoke. Take for instance, Maiguru.

Maiguru:

Maiguru is everything some of us would never want to be: the perfect wife. She obeys a stubborn egoistic man at her peril, to the point that when she eventually decides to run away, Nyasha, her extremely brilliant daughter celebrates.

I think Maiguru is a tragic figure. It is the 50s, she has a Master’s degree (some of us still feel very great in this day and age just having a basic degree!) and she has all manner of opportunities open to her. But clearly, she is the product of an evil patriarchal system that is hell-bent on keeping women somewhere just below a one week old baby boy (remember when Babamukuru tells Tambudzai that he feels the need to start saving money for Dambudzo, Tambu’s one week (month) old baby brother. His vision is that Tambu should finish school fast get a job and a good husband. Babamukuru’s focus thus turns supremely towards a baby boy whose potential is yet to be measured, and is willing to sacrifice Tambu’s education at the Catholic school for him. Convoluted I know but this is the system from which Maiguru emerges. So when she packs her bags and leaves Babamukuru, we are all relieved. Like Tambu and Nyasha, we hope she will never return to Baba, we hope and pray that she will escape from the utter selfishness displayed by him.

But she comes back.

And even though she begins demanding more of him, and asserting herself a lot more firmly, we are disappointed that she still treats him and spoils him with praises and that no one appreciates just how hard it is to be part of such a man’s life. We are told when she leaves that Babamukuru continued existing as if Maiguru never left. Of course he would exist, what with all the women (Anna, Tambu and Nyasha) standing to be held accountable if none of his meals were made, or if his shirts were not clean. The machinery that keeps him going is the same one he humiliates.

Chido:

I particularly love the character of Chido, mainly because he is the ‘absent’ man in the novel. You see, in a novel where Jeremiah the lazy drunk and Takesure have bigger rights than brilliant women such as Mama Tambu, Lucia, Nyasha and Tambu, you have got to celebrate the power of the absent one. He is not absent in the way that Achebe’s Nwoye or even Okonkwo’s fathers are, he is absent in a good way, a healthy way, a way feminists would appreciate (radical?). So while I may not want to say much more for fear of spoiling it, I think Chido represents the salvation of the novel. If more of those characters were as absent, I suspect the four women would be a lot happier.

I think both Tambudzai and Nyasha need a lot more reflection before I write what I thought of them, but you get the general drift.

I won! I know I did!

Once in your life, the thought of winning a million shillings or rand, or dollars (varied value notwithstanding) fills your head with dreams and tantalizing thoughts and possibilities! You think of how you will build a biig house with lots of space in it, and design it with ultra-modern lines and squares just like you always wanted. Then you'd have your loveliest colours sprinkling the otherwise serenely white room! Ohhhh!

But the reality is that you have got to work for your money, Like a donkey, and so that beautiful house will come, but through sweat. But still we dream.

Well, a few days ago, I filled in a 'raffle' ticket at one of the big stores, and wonder wonder, I got a call yesterday. This was basically how the conversation went:

Caller: Hallo, is this Ms D. L
Me: Yes?
C: How are you?
Me: Ok?
C: That's good. Ms L, I am just calling to let you know that your raffle ticket was selected and you are a guaranteed winner-
Me: Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
C: Listen, you will need-
Me: Oh my God! I won Something! Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! God, is this being recorded?
C: No its not being recorded, I am just calling to let you know that you were among the lucky ones.
Me: what did I win?
C: There is a range of things you stand a chance of winning. You could win R 50,000; a Mecer laptop, a getaway at a Resort of your choice; or a (sth) inch plasma TV!
M: I won sth! Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
C: Maam, you will have to come to our offices tomorrow at 18:00 to claim your prize. There will be a draw and you will have to pick one of the items I have listed for you. Now, for marketing purposes-
Me: OMG!
C: For marketing purposes, we have to get your details, like do have a credit or cheque account, where we can deposit the money?
M: Not yet! I mean, I have a savings account.
c: Oh, Savings. That's okay. And do you have a job?
M: Yeah?
C: what is it?
M: Currently am doing a contract job at X.
C: What is your salary package?
M: Sorry? Sorry, I didnt get your name please
C: XXX
M: Ok. I am still not quite employed so I don't have a package yet, but will soon enough.
C: okay, I hope you know this is just for marketing purposes and nothing sinister. Now we will want you to come in tomorrow and sit through a presentation and then we will have the draw and you will win your package.
M: Presentation? will it be on national TV?
C: No no, its just us, we need to tell you a little bit about our company.
M: Oh, okay then. good. Just send me you address and I will be there.

Now, I know what you'all thinking. How can i be so daft? Thing is, this was the first time I was hearing of something like that. I hang up, and was soon day-dreaming about a holiday resort, consoling myself with a plasma TV, toying with the idea of a new laptop, but mostly, just eyeing the R50,000! Wow! I would shop till I dropped.

Then I began sharing my excitement! Those who did not know, like me, we as excited as me. But those who knew, just said...you go check it out, but don't sign anything.

That got me....'guaranteed winner? presentation? what the-' Okay, I became bold and asked. Four different people later, i am glad I asked.

Turns out the company that called me is part of a bigger marketting gig carried out by small companies that use these 'winning' moments as opportunities to sell timeshares. For the uneducated like me, "A timeshare is a form of ownership or right to the use of a property, or the term used to describe such properties. Timeshare properties are typically resort condominium units, in which multiple parties hold rights to use the property, and each sharer is allotted a period of time (typically one week) in which they may use the property" (Source: Wikipedia).

Now in a rich society, maybe these things really work, but imagine money being deducted from my 'inyana' salary every month towards a timeshare for a holiday resort somewhere, maybe for a week! Why should I pay for somethig I have not even planned for? Why! why did my one moment of glory turn so sour so suddenly? I am renewing my bid to read more, learn more and discover more this year. this will go down as my one near gloriuos moment of fame!


Ok. my presentation is at 18:00 today, only I will not show. I will sit at home and catch up on the sleep I never had!!!

If you knew about this kind of thing, take note and learn some more, if you didn't don't fall for anything. I am lucky its only my pride that got bruised!

Reading and its merits

Those who know me well...and I mean well, know that I love to put my feet up and ease into my hand-me-down couch to watch...Sex and The City:-) Friends, Harry Potter (the whole lot of them), Desperate Houssies, name them. I even got to watch the first series of Allie McBeal and Nip-Tuck. All of these I collect, and watch and rewatch until I get value for my money. And for those who try to dissuade me from this habit, I say, "this is not one of the ways to get out of this alive..."

But once in a while I sit down and read, and read a good book. Leave alone the usual academic sort. I mean, I slept really late reading a book on Media Theory. Now, that is not exciting. Exciting is when you read a book and become completely cut off from the world. I used to feel that way what I was younger. It was mainly with African Writers Series, and later Mills and Boon, Harlequinn Romance, name them...oooohhhh, the joy of getting lost in that world, so woolly, cozy, fantastic, so not part of the harshness of reality of everyday life, so nice, fine...

Anyway, the African novels always filled me with a sense of adventure. Even though I am an African, I always found stories written by Africans (in the age pre-dating discourse and theory-oh i miss those days), so rich and intense. For instance, it has been years since I read Kenjo Jumbam's 'The White Man of God', but ask any of my friends, it is a book I always quote. Its wierd that years later, after reading 'HouseBoy' (Ferdinand Oyono), I realised just how popular the theme of the young boy child and the white catholic father was. But when I first read Jumbam, I was hooked. I also remember a book called 'The Great Siege of Fort Jesus!' The adventures of war right outside my doorstep still make me shake with excitement.

But enough about the yesteryears.

I just finished reading this book by Hanif Kureishi called 'The Buddha of Suburbia'. It is a fascinating read about the identity crisis of a young man, whose mother is white British and father Indian. It explores in great detail his sexual experimentations, which are at once experimental and dangerous, yet daring and forward. It is nihilistic in a twisted way, and reads more like a humourous recording of everyday life. I found myself muffling bits of laughter that threatened to escape from my mouth every few minutes as I read into the night. Of course it was not a hard read, and the politics therein were concrete experiences of London and South London. Me, who is yet to travel to these places could see the place that was painted in Dicken's writing re-emerging even as the time represented changed. It was an awesome read.

And I remember having a similar experience with 'Spud' by South Africa's John van de Ruit. With characters bearing names like Spud, Rambo, Mad dog, Rain Man, Gecko, Fatty and Boggo, the book was surreal yet rooted in my own boarding school reality way back when I hated the experience. I say surreal because it does not always remain in-sync with my experiences-I went to a boarding school where frequent visitation was prohibited, so i only saw my parents once in a long while. Also, the school in 'Spud' reeked of privilege which is not what I can say of MY boarding school, but hey, boarding school is boarding school, miserable, annoying and desperately lonely. Survival is key, and this one must learn, even before figuring out where the toilets are upon arrival!!! Well, 'Spud' was a great read, and often i found myself laughing out loud. I had not read something so good in a long while. I must read 'Spud: The Madness Continues...'

so anyway, where was I? ah, the merits of reading books that make you smile. Reading generally is very active, as opposed to watching TV. you feel well rewarded after you start a book and find out it contains information, narratives, anything really that is beneficial to you, even if just in excercising your brains to stop them from vegetating from too much TV...


I know it when I pick a good book. I finish it.

I am right now contemplating my next read. I know. I have so much work to do right now, but it still makes me happy just knowing I can sneak a few chapters down the time line, even as I battle with bigger issues of planning and sorting myself out for the rest of the term/semester. Its just good to know sometimes that when you read, it is something you will enjoy. So this year, apart from resolving to read more of the newspapers, I want to make sure I produce book reviews of everything I read. That way, I will always come back to this website to self-grade, and ask myself if I had made any progress or if I was still stuck watching my series, and exploring You Tube and the like. I still believe life offers the greatest ironies. I had to get to this stage of my life to realize there are still things i care about that have nothing to do with the selfsih capitalist agenda of bettering my career or making money. It is something I enjoy doing, and its one of those things that comes naturally.

Nuff

Friends

It is amazing that this is what we have become, so many years after trying so hard to be here. I look at all my friends now, and am really proud that we actually got here.How we have escaped from life's snares and withstood pain so deep, hard to fathom, leave alone explain. Mostly, I just sit and marvel at what life has thrown my way.

Yes, I worked hard, but just as hard as any of my other friends.

It stings that I have lost so many friends along the way, but my father always told me never to measure myself by the number of friends i had, but by the number of friends I was able to keep.

And I adhere to this rule. If I can keep a friend, then they are worth keeping.

We swim in and out of life's loneliness, confused and needing attention, acceptance. those of us who are not into that sort of thing raise our noses with disdain, everytime another group closes us out. But in the end, we all want love, and we all want to be loved. We all feel stronger when we know that no matter what, there will always be someone who can touch us and heal us and tell us we will be alright.

and that is why we have friends.

Friends, not just to decorate our private halls of fame, not to hold up as trophies, that other people may come and praise, worship, recognize, admire...

No. we have friends because they are extensions of us. yes. Extensions.

And that is why I quote my father so much. he believed that in his lifetime he made a lot of friends.

But not all of them were friends.

There were those conveniently chosen for a specific job: My rave friend, my drinking buddy; my apartment hunting buddy; by money-lending buddy; my cute buddy (to snare with more hot looking friends).

Compartmentalizing.

That is what we are all good at, and yet...

Who are we really? who are our friends? are they the ones who hold back your hair as you throw up at a party when you've had too much to drink/eat???

are they the ones who help you mourn your loved ones and hold your hand when no one else wants to?

are they the ones who allow you to sneak into their homes when your life's has lost meaning?

are they the daring ones who will defend you when no one has the courage, guts or interest?

are they the ones who will invite you into their homes, and share their meal even when they know they have nowhere else to get more?

OR

Are they the ones who hang onto you because you have something they want?

are they the ones who only mention your name because someone they like knows and likes you?

are they the ones who quickly disappear when real issues land on your feet?

Mmmm...I sit uncomfortably with the word friend, because often, I get confused. I never know where the line is drawn, close myself off, open up, scream, jump around, come back to my senses and remember my father's words, mingle, woolly ideas all over my head, wondering if what I know is worth anything and if a friend if going to help me unravel...

The mysteries of my world.

I wonder.