The Power of Stories to Shape and Anchor a Life.
I have never been comfortable with talking about myself -it does not come naturally to me. There is greater comfort in anonymity. I am more at home talking about my work, my causes and the issues that move me. Once upon a time, the thought of putting a picture of myself online made me shudder. After all, such things are the preserve of great men and women who have lived lives of consequence that are worth recording. However, as an entrepreneur trying to connect people to my cause, I have now come to appreciate the necessity of telling my story to allow others to connect with it. The English suffragist Virginia Woolf eloquently explained the necessity to record a life. Anyone who has lived a life, and left a record of that life is worthy of biography- warts and all, failures, successes, the humble as well as the illustrious. This story is told in this spirit.
My roots
I was born in Guruve, in the northern province of Zimbabwe in Mashonaland Central. Apart from the heartbreak of HIV/AIDS in our communities in which so many loved ones were lost, I had a perfectly ordinary, normal happy childhood. The loss of my beloved tall, handsome and kind uncle Ephraim was a cathartic moment for me. It was then that I made the decision. When I grew up, I would dedicate my life to finding solutions to help communities like ours. That is what has led me to my current path as an entrepreneur -working to improve access to medicines for my fellow Africans.
I grew up with the idea that my life was partly my own since children belong to the community. They represent a people and a history. I was born in an independent Zimbabwe. Along with my peers, ours was a generation that had the fortune of being born in an independent nation. We escaped the horrors of a time when Zimbabwe was still Rhodesia, a colony of the British empire. Colonial rule was a time of great suffering for our people. There were so many limitations. Only a selected few could go to school or take up certain kinds of employment. However, as children, we relieved the horrors of this time though the stories of our parents, our grandparents our aunties and our uncles. My uncle Ephraim could make any story come to life. He was a brave leader who endured a lot as the son of a Chief during the struggle to liberate Zimbabwe.
The wisdom of our elders
Our elders like my beloved uncle Ephraim told us vivid stories of the heroic exploits of the brave men and women from Zimbabwe´s two main Kingdoms of Monomutapa and Mzilikazi. Long before the arrival of white settlers in our Kingdom in 1890, our system of government was run by chiefs like my uncle Ephraim. These chiefs represented the interest of the people in the Shona and Ndebele tribes of Zimbabwe. They led their people, resolved conflicts amongst them, and made the rule of law that governed how their society was to be run. For the Shona, such decisions were made by consensus through consultation in the Council of Elders. Our political culture then was guided by democratic principles, which alas, we have not held onto, on our difficult path to nationhood.
That path began with a people´s struggle to resist white domination. It culminated in the Chimurenga war that would free our people from a life of perpetual servitude. The brave men and women before us valued our freedom enough to make the ultimate sacrifice, so that we would not be born into servitude. Yet, today´s assault on the same freedoms leaves one wondering where it all went wrong. If my favourite hero, the formidable and fearless Mbuya (grandma) Nehanda who was a wise leader were to see the state of our nation today, what would she say? Would she think her hanging by the British for the cause of freeing a nation she loved to have been a worthy sacrifice?
Sitting around the fire, we would snuggle onto my tall beautiful gogo (grandmother) Enia´s warm lap listening to tales from a long long time ago, when animals could talk until we dozed off. The stories that our elders told were imbued with meaning. Preserved in these stories were important life lessons and wisdom that had been distilled, embellished and passed on from generation to generation for the primary purpose of instructing and weaving our identity as children. They were cautionary tales that taught us never to take the freedom we enjoyed for granted. I lived for those enchanted moments of tales woven from a rich tapestry of folklore, fables and oral history. Listening to those stories felt like a profound expression of how much we were loved. Those stories said to us, “you matter, hugely.” It felt like the warm embrace of our ancestors through messages which were so nourishing.
Stories were the means by which we were taught our cultural norms and values which to this day revolve around the concept of Ubuntu in Ndebele or Hunhu in Shona. Ubuntu, is the idea that I am because you are. It emphasises solidarity with one´s community in recognition that no person is an island. When a neighbor falls sick, you bring them a food. Community means depending on each other. Service to others. We were taught to respect elders. Showing Ubunhu meant openness and acceptance of others. It also meant the humility of understanding that every person could potentially teach you something, even a young child or a seemingly ungifted person. These values, we were told, were the glue that bonded us and made us resilient as a people.
We are all one
We learned that as a people, we were all one — tied together by an intricate system of totems which informed us of the common heritage that we might share with each other or with a stranger. My totem Soko, which means monkey means that a stranger of the same totem is a blood relative whom I cannot consider for marriage. Such a person must be treated as a brother, sister, father, uncle or aunt. My mother is of Mhofu (Eland) totem. This links me to the Mhofus and I can for instance consider any Mhofu woman an aunt. This system brings great comfort as it allows one to find family no matter where you are.
And yet, for all the emphasis on how we are one with one another, as a child I always felt different. My head was always full of ideas which I was quite eager to try out which inadvertently landed me in trouble a lot more than I liked. I loved to debate with my brother, my dad, my uncles. They would challenge me with a provocative statement which would lead to a heated debate in which I held my own.
In return, I challenged many things me. For instance, I refused to learn any of the things that I was told our society expected girls to learn in order to prepare for a future as a good wife or mother. Such things were simply anathema to my person. I had other plans for my future and I wanted the same freedoms that my brother and my male cousins had - climbing trees, playing football and the like. I saw no reason why I could not do those things too. I would not learn to cook until I was at university when it had become a necessity for my well-being. After all, one can only cook beans on toast only for so long before it gets a bit dull. Luckily I shared my stdudent apartment with students from all over the world which influenced my fusion cooking style which is more me.
My parents did not differentiate between my brother and I. We were both sent to great schools. At school, like him, I excelled academically. I was driven by the simple desire to match my brother. We were always pitting mentally against each other my brother and I. We wrote to each other from boarding school and when I left Zimbabwe to complete school in England where I did A levels on a scholarship before going to University in Scotland. Growing up, he was my best friend, but somewhere along the way, we grew apart. They tell me it is because of my stubbornness and willfulness of always venturing into the forays of men. I do not agree.
Books, my most-priced posessions
To a child who loved stories like I did, discovering books after learning to read was such a revelation. It was love at first sight. I spent most of my spare time when I was not playing with my siblings and cousins with my nose buried in a book. When a story was particularly enchanting, reading was the only thing I wanted to do, a trait that frustrated my family to no end. It was next to impossible to get me do any anything else, including my chores. So thoroughly devoted to exploring the adventures and mysteries encapsulated in those books that it was a necessity that I develop a bag of tricks to minimize intrusion and interruption. I found a few strategic hide outs. My favourite was being perched on a good snuggly tree from which I could spend many happy hours exploring the adventures of Enid Blyton´s Famous Five, Charles Dickens´ Oliver Twist, Charlotte Bronte´s Jayne Eyre or Chinua Achebe´s Chinua Achebe´s Things Fall Apart.
My taste in books is very diverse though it has evolved, just like my taste in clothes, thank God! When I was at university, I once helped an old lady carry her bag onto a bus and she said to me “Oh thank you young man” to which I smiled and said “ you´are most welcome maam.” These days, I consume mostly historical and political biographies and other books that help me to grow as a person. I still enjoy a good fiction or fantasy. I have voraciosuly ready the entire collection of Pratchet´s work, Tom Sharpe, Steven King and many others.
When I was navigating the epic adventures of Tolkien´s Lord of the Rings, Steven King´s Dark Tower , I simply disappeared for days. From these books I found great mentors in my books, like Terry Pratchet´s practical character Granny Weatherwax whom is an old dear, though in real life, most of my mentors have turned out to be predominantly male. Before I left for university, I was given a gift, the book Daughters of Africa which I continue to treasure alongside my collection of writers from Africa like Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie, Tsitsi Dangarembwa, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Charles Mungoshi and many others. Books have proved to be one of the most enduring loves of my life. They remain amongst my most prized possessions. My home is overflowing with them and cozy reading corners are one of my must-haves in my personal space.
Marriage and motherhood
At University, I was very active in the students representative Council and at some point I was the President of the African Caribbean Society. I met and fell in love with an amazing guy — tall, handsome, witty. The most striking thing I remember about meeting him the first time was how funny he was. After years of marriage, he is the only person who can make me laugh so hard until my ribs hurt. We are complete opposites, but we also share much, including an undying love for books, on which we bonded. I feel very fortunate that I get to ride though the slings and arrows of life with my rock and my soul mate beside me. It has softened life´s blows considerably. Though I never planned on it, marriage turned out to be quite an adventure.
Motherhood remains the single most rewarding thing I have ever done. It has challenged me to grow in ways I never contemplated. It was the one thing that turned the fearless swashbuckling girl of my youth into a bag of nerves and worry, but I quickily adjusted and got past that. When I became pregnant with my first child, I wanted very much to share with my child the magic I discovered in books. I began collecting beautiful leather-bound children´s classics, and more from my favourite bookstore I used to frequent when I worked in Manhattan, New York. It was mostly books I had enjoyed as a child like Beatrix Porter, Alice in Wonderland. They would be a birthday gift to my unborn child who had a mountain of books to last a lifetime before coming into the world. It was definitely worth the effort, for we have spent many warm moments reading together snuggled on a bin bag by the fire, on the roof, in one of my carefully put together cozy reading corners around the house or in the garden when the weather is agreeable.
Staying true to oneself in a world that questions who you are
Living so far from home, it is easy to lose oneself in the noise and cacophony of an alien society. However, the fireside stories of my childhood are a constant acnhor and a testament to who I am — a grandchild of chiefs, with an obligation to my ancestors and my people. Their was a priceless gift that has kept me grounded, and for that I am eternally grateful. My greatest fear is that as African people, we have let go of the beauty of our stories by relegating the culture and institutions of our traditional leadership to the dustbin of history as being irrelevant to our lives today. Yet they have so much to offer us. Of course, cultures everywhere, ours must evolve with time too shedding off aspects that are harmful and absorbing new ones that are beneficial. Nevertheless, it is worthwhile holding onto the core that make us who we are.
Similar to our own, many cultures around the world including Victorian England, once considered educating daughters a waste of resources. In Victorian England for instance, women were considered much too fragile for education. They had to be protected from it, lest it rendered them insane. However, in the world we live in today, no society can develop sustainably without educating its women and girls. Investing in girls education is widely recognised for providing one of the best returns to society´s investment for so many reasons.
Educated women contribute to healthier wealthier societies in more ways than one can count. So does giving children balanced knowledge of their language, culture, history, their identity. It anchors them firmly in their roots and enable them to simultaneously carry with them a healthy respect for self and for others. This way, they venture out into the world with a strong sense of who they are with less risk of losing themselves when the world tell them, they are not worthy, as it inevitably does. The stories that we tell our children are that rare gift that our ancestors gave us to help shape our identity and our values simply. By continuing to share them with our children, we help them to never forget the faces of their ancestors and in turn who they truly are as individuals.
