Novuyo Rosa Tshuma is the author of the book Shadows. Her short fiction has
been featured in publications which include A Life in Full and Other Stories; Caine Prize Anthology, The Bed Books of Short Stories, Where to Now? Short stories from Zimbabwe and Sentinel Literary Quarterly. She won the Intwasa Short Story Competition 2009, now known as the Yvonne Vera Award, for her short story You In Paradise. She was shortlisted for the Zimbabwe Achievers Literature Award 2012 for her short story Doctor S. She is currently studying towards a Bcom in Economics and Finance at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa.
been featured in publications which include A Life in Full and Other Stories; Caine Prize Anthology, The Bed Books of Short Stories, Where to Now? Short stories from Zimbabwe and Sentinel Literary Quarterly. She won the Intwasa Short Story Competition 2009, now known as the Yvonne Vera Award, for her short story You In Paradise. She was shortlisted for the Zimbabwe Achievers Literature Award 2012 for her short story Doctor S. She is currently studying towards a Bcom in Economics and Finance at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa.
A tripping down the Zimbabwean Landscape
My recent trip to Zimbabwe evoked a mixture of emotions in me; it was lovely to be home and heartbreaking at the same time. Home makes me squirm; perhaps it is both personal and social; the me in Zimbabwe resonates an uncomfortable social intimacy; am now more accustomed to the me here in South Africa, who easily melts into the many folds of anonymity in this huge and vigorous space. At home, one meets familiar faces at every corner, and one is ever aware at once of belonging to a larger, more intimate social quilt. One embroiders these seams with something of the expected social discourse.
I think home - Zimbabwe - is still a very hard space. There has been a lot of talk on the social networks about how much progress has been made - perhaps indeed it has - but that progress I feel can only be fully appreciated when it is finally translated to the greater masses, an improvement of the standard of living for that man on the street. There is still a disturbing, even delicious aspiration towards corruption, and I mean corruption even on the basic level. The people I spoke to made it clear that the only way to 'make it' was to be 'clever' and partake in some form of 'dealing' or 'other' because 'straight things don't pay'.
For example, when I asked about the banking system, somebody laughed and told me that they would never keep their money in the bank.
'Why?' I asked.
'Because several banks have failed and closed down, and once they close down, you shall never see your money. I know of somebody who lost a whole $50 000.'
I was incredulous. 'And there is nothing you can do?'
'What can you do? Many of these new banks are indigenous banks. It's like this. If you own a bank and I ask you to loan me money, and you give me because I'm your friend even if I'm not credit worthy, and then we spend that money together... even if I don't pay, there is nothing you will do because we are in this loan scheme together, and so you file for bankruptcy and you have no money. So people don't trust the banks. It's estimated that about $2 billion is in circulation in Zimbabwe, on the streets and not in the banks.'
Somebody who runs a civic organisation said how difficult it is to try and operate in remote areas of the country, such as the rural areas, in trying to mobilise, for example, youth participation in civic matters. The people there were always suspicious, I was told, wanting to know which political party one belonged to, and would not believe that one did not belong to any political party and was there on civic matters as a principle. Furthermore, the local authorities and local police of the remote areas were unco-operative, I was told, and were a law unto themselves. They laughed at documents such as interdicts from the High Court, and banned gatherings at their whim, saying, 'these pieces of paper don't mean anything here. We decided what happens here.' They were unashamedly disrespectful of the rule of law. In one area, the police bragged about having arrested the Minister of National Healing, in 2011, Mzila Ndlovu, on his way to a gathering to address a crowd on the very matter of National Healing. More frightening were the stories of people who 'disappear'. One is never sure whether it is a long inherited paranoia or an accurate depiction of the state of things, but I was specifically told not to speak about certain
things and not to mention certain things in public, such as Gukurahundi. I was told that it is an absolute no-go area, a taboo subject. Of course, this would not be surprising following things such as the arrest in 2010 of the arrest of artist Owen Maseko because of his Gukurahundi exhibition. Talking to a few people about such things, the atmosphere seemed to be that people 'do not want trouble', and are aiming for a 'better existence' in Zimbabwe, and don't want things that will 'set them back' or 'bring them trouble'. But this I feel is a notion which is circular and ends in one shooting oneself in the foot. What is trouble? I wonder. Burying a blister does not make the pain of it go away.
On books and reading and the Zimbabwean landscape: I think we can intellectualise and discuss the matter all we want, but the facts on the ground are harsh. I had all these ideas about reading, about books and how it is a shame that local societies do not buy their own books, how a book is a precious thing to be cherished. Indeed, it is true that the society which reads a piece of work is as much a crucial part of that work as is the ability of the writer to pen it. Before, Africa was being spoken for, by texts such as 'The Heart of Darkness' which became iconic of Africa; now, Africa has a plethora of writers and many voices which attempt to speak for her. But her audience is largely Western, and hence there is still that power play, because an audience does decide what a piece of work means, and at present, many African authors are not held accountable by the societies about which they write simply because those societies do not read and interrogate the works that are produced.
All of this sounds very nice and I arrived in Zimbabwe convinced that I would try and preach about this.
But now.
There I was, walking the streets of Nkulumane, a township in Bulawayo. Little children were scampering across the street, cradling empty bottles of water, on their way to the communal borehole. The region had bad rains last year, and there is a water shortage. Water goes 3 times a week, and is set to go 4 times. Electricity goes everyday except Tuesdays.
Lying on a mattress listening to the rhythms outside, the girls next door complaining about their hair as they made a fire for cooking, all the nice sounding preaching fled from my lips. Walking in the morning, just watching the film that is the township, the vendors setting up their wares by the roadside, at the Flea Market opposite Sokusile Shops, where everything from soaps and lotions to sofas to kitchen table sets to car parts can be found, I wondered: what could I tell these people? How could I preach to them about 'the value of a book, buy books and read them,' how could I chastise them about being 'a society that does not appreciate the value of reading,for leisure and pleasure! The West reads your books, and there is a certain power because now they get to decide what your own work is!' When exactly would these young girls, in between
collecting water, firewood, cooking and cleaning and all the other practical chores, get a space in which to breathe a book? Suddenly, smack-dab in the middle of that landscape, the neat and pretty words evaporated, and in their place was a reality which made my mouth dry.
A reluctant realisation - 'buying a book, the value of buying a book', was something of a ridiculous notion in this landscape. Something very intellectual and idealistic, that perhaps would lack a practical vehicle to back it up. In a landscape where people are struggling to pay school fees for their children and provide three meals a day, in a landscape where people are after the tangible things that can be translated into immediate money, a book is a surreal thing, a far off thing. Sure enough,
they will go out of their way to buy a book if it's for school purposes, because it is understood, even if it is no longer totally believed, that school is the gateway to social and financial success, an escape route from current poverty and hardship. A book in such a landscape, becomes something of a 'social responsibility'.
It's really more than just the tangible reality of it, but the atmosphere of it. The mountain is huge. Here in South Africa, I have encountered a different sort of attitude to a book, and perhaps it may be because the landscape is 'ready' for it? Zimbabwe faces so much still; I sensed a certain attitude, an attitude I thought I had left back in 2008, with the queues; a lack of faith in the leaders, from the basic level of council, that sinks people into a state of apathy. So if you speak to somebody you find they are still complaining, but that complaint ends in a shrug. In that sense, I would think that the love within South African communities of taking to the streets and toyi-toying is a good thing; it fosters within a community the sense that they can do something about their situation, that they still have a measure of power to have their voices heard, and that they can make a
difference. This sense of communal power is I think crucial for any society, and seems dead in Zimbabwe.
So, I found this trip on a whole a bit frightening for me, because it is as if Zimbabwe has not changed. I speak of the atmosphere of it, the suspicion of it, the way things are done, the open belief that corruption is the way to get ahead, since those who 'have money', are a few compared to the population, and since many of them seem to have gotten ahead through corrupt means. Perhaps it frightens me because I was viewing and questioning this from a comparison to South Africa which, although it has its fair share of problems, exhibits a more democratic and auspicious landscape, with a healthier debate platform and a plethora of opportunities.
Reading Jane Bryce's essay 'Imaginary Snapshots' in 'Sign and Taboo: Perspectives on the Poetic Fiction of Yvonne Vera', a paragraph she quotes from Ben Okri's 'The Famished Road' stood out, and became, at that moment of reading it, pondering
my surroundings, a poignant depiction:
By his presence, the photographer calls people into being as individuals who would otherwise remain faceless, and provides a record of events which otherwise would pass unrecorded into oblivion... Later, when the security forces come
looking for the photographer, the narrator is witness as: 'His camera flashed and thugs in dark glasses appeared from the flash and proceeded to beat him up... The thugs jumped on the camera and stamped on it, trying to crush and destroy it. And the people who were inside the camera, who were waiting to become real... began wailing and wouldn't stop.' (ibid., 173) - page 45.
Reality is a frightening thing, and perhaps hence why one seeks refuge in the pen, where one can remap even the harshest glare. But a writer of fiction, what is a writer of fiction in this landscape? He is a pretty thing, a decoration, yes perhaps with 'something to say', but, something to say to the people, with them, or about them, I wonder? As long as they are not engaging their own work, or do not have the means to engage their own work, they remain the subjects of it, the fascination of it to be pondered and dissected elsewhere, to be mapped and made real elsewhere. A writer sees this landscape and is fascinated by it, is inspired by it, picks up his pen in a feverish state, but he is also moved to flee from it, lest he finds himself drowning in the fear of it, and wakes up one day to find he has lost the fascination of words.
It is a shame.
I think home - Zimbabwe - is still a very hard space. There has been a lot of talk on the social networks about how much progress has been made - perhaps indeed it has - but that progress I feel can only be fully appreciated when it is finally translated to the greater masses, an improvement of the standard of living for that man on the street. There is still a disturbing, even delicious aspiration towards corruption, and I mean corruption even on the basic level. The people I spoke to made it clear that the only way to 'make it' was to be 'clever' and partake in some form of 'dealing' or 'other' because 'straight things don't pay'.
For example, when I asked about the banking system, somebody laughed and told me that they would never keep their money in the bank.
'Why?' I asked.
'Because several banks have failed and closed down, and once they close down, you shall never see your money. I know of somebody who lost a whole $50 000.'
I was incredulous. 'And there is nothing you can do?'
'What can you do? Many of these new banks are indigenous banks. It's like this. If you own a bank and I ask you to loan me money, and you give me because I'm your friend even if I'm not credit worthy, and then we spend that money together... even if I don't pay, there is nothing you will do because we are in this loan scheme together, and so you file for bankruptcy and you have no money. So people don't trust the banks. It's estimated that about $2 billion is in circulation in Zimbabwe, on the streets and not in the banks.'
Somebody who runs a civic organisation said how difficult it is to try and operate in remote areas of the country, such as the rural areas, in trying to mobilise, for example, youth participation in civic matters. The people there were always suspicious, I was told, wanting to know which political party one belonged to, and would not believe that one did not belong to any political party and was there on civic matters as a principle. Furthermore, the local authorities and local police of the remote areas were unco-operative, I was told, and were a law unto themselves. They laughed at documents such as interdicts from the High Court, and banned gatherings at their whim, saying, 'these pieces of paper don't mean anything here. We decided what happens here.' They were unashamedly disrespectful of the rule of law. In one area, the police bragged about having arrested the Minister of National Healing, in 2011, Mzila Ndlovu, on his way to a gathering to address a crowd on the very matter of National Healing. More frightening were the stories of people who 'disappear'. One is never sure whether it is a long inherited paranoia or an accurate depiction of the state of things, but I was specifically told not to speak about certain
things and not to mention certain things in public, such as Gukurahundi. I was told that it is an absolute no-go area, a taboo subject. Of course, this would not be surprising following things such as the arrest in 2010 of the arrest of artist Owen Maseko because of his Gukurahundi exhibition. Talking to a few people about such things, the atmosphere seemed to be that people 'do not want trouble', and are aiming for a 'better existence' in Zimbabwe, and don't want things that will 'set them back' or 'bring them trouble'. But this I feel is a notion which is circular and ends in one shooting oneself in the foot. What is trouble? I wonder. Burying a blister does not make the pain of it go away.
On books and reading and the Zimbabwean landscape: I think we can intellectualise and discuss the matter all we want, but the facts on the ground are harsh. I had all these ideas about reading, about books and how it is a shame that local societies do not buy their own books, how a book is a precious thing to be cherished. Indeed, it is true that the society which reads a piece of work is as much a crucial part of that work as is the ability of the writer to pen it. Before, Africa was being spoken for, by texts such as 'The Heart of Darkness' which became iconic of Africa; now, Africa has a plethora of writers and many voices which attempt to speak for her. But her audience is largely Western, and hence there is still that power play, because an audience does decide what a piece of work means, and at present, many African authors are not held accountable by the societies about which they write simply because those societies do not read and interrogate the works that are produced.
All of this sounds very nice and I arrived in Zimbabwe convinced that I would try and preach about this.
But now.
There I was, walking the streets of Nkulumane, a township in Bulawayo. Little children were scampering across the street, cradling empty bottles of water, on their way to the communal borehole. The region had bad rains last year, and there is a water shortage. Water goes 3 times a week, and is set to go 4 times. Electricity goes everyday except Tuesdays.
Lying on a mattress listening to the rhythms outside, the girls next door complaining about their hair as they made a fire for cooking, all the nice sounding preaching fled from my lips. Walking in the morning, just watching the film that is the township, the vendors setting up their wares by the roadside, at the Flea Market opposite Sokusile Shops, where everything from soaps and lotions to sofas to kitchen table sets to car parts can be found, I wondered: what could I tell these people? How could I preach to them about 'the value of a book, buy books and read them,' how could I chastise them about being 'a society that does not appreciate the value of reading,for leisure and pleasure! The West reads your books, and there is a certain power because now they get to decide what your own work is!' When exactly would these young girls, in between
collecting water, firewood, cooking and cleaning and all the other practical chores, get a space in which to breathe a book? Suddenly, smack-dab in the middle of that landscape, the neat and pretty words evaporated, and in their place was a reality which made my mouth dry.
A reluctant realisation - 'buying a book, the value of buying a book', was something of a ridiculous notion in this landscape. Something very intellectual and idealistic, that perhaps would lack a practical vehicle to back it up. In a landscape where people are struggling to pay school fees for their children and provide three meals a day, in a landscape where people are after the tangible things that can be translated into immediate money, a book is a surreal thing, a far off thing. Sure enough,
they will go out of their way to buy a book if it's for school purposes, because it is understood, even if it is no longer totally believed, that school is the gateway to social and financial success, an escape route from current poverty and hardship. A book in such a landscape, becomes something of a 'social responsibility'.
It's really more than just the tangible reality of it, but the atmosphere of it. The mountain is huge. Here in South Africa, I have encountered a different sort of attitude to a book, and perhaps it may be because the landscape is 'ready' for it? Zimbabwe faces so much still; I sensed a certain attitude, an attitude I thought I had left back in 2008, with the queues; a lack of faith in the leaders, from the basic level of council, that sinks people into a state of apathy. So if you speak to somebody you find they are still complaining, but that complaint ends in a shrug. In that sense, I would think that the love within South African communities of taking to the streets and toyi-toying is a good thing; it fosters within a community the sense that they can do something about their situation, that they still have a measure of power to have their voices heard, and that they can make a
difference. This sense of communal power is I think crucial for any society, and seems dead in Zimbabwe.
So, I found this trip on a whole a bit frightening for me, because it is as if Zimbabwe has not changed. I speak of the atmosphere of it, the suspicion of it, the way things are done, the open belief that corruption is the way to get ahead, since those who 'have money', are a few compared to the population, and since many of them seem to have gotten ahead through corrupt means. Perhaps it frightens me because I was viewing and questioning this from a comparison to South Africa which, although it has its fair share of problems, exhibits a more democratic and auspicious landscape, with a healthier debate platform and a plethora of opportunities.
Reading Jane Bryce's essay 'Imaginary Snapshots' in 'Sign and Taboo: Perspectives on the Poetic Fiction of Yvonne Vera', a paragraph she quotes from Ben Okri's 'The Famished Road' stood out, and became, at that moment of reading it, pondering
my surroundings, a poignant depiction:
By his presence, the photographer calls people into being as individuals who would otherwise remain faceless, and provides a record of events which otherwise would pass unrecorded into oblivion... Later, when the security forces come
looking for the photographer, the narrator is witness as: 'His camera flashed and thugs in dark glasses appeared from the flash and proceeded to beat him up... The thugs jumped on the camera and stamped on it, trying to crush and destroy it. And the people who were inside the camera, who were waiting to become real... began wailing and wouldn't stop.' (ibid., 173) - page 45.
Reality is a frightening thing, and perhaps hence why one seeks refuge in the pen, where one can remap even the harshest glare. But a writer of fiction, what is a writer of fiction in this landscape? He is a pretty thing, a decoration, yes perhaps with 'something to say', but, something to say to the people, with them, or about them, I wonder? As long as they are not engaging their own work, or do not have the means to engage their own work, they remain the subjects of it, the fascination of it to be pondered and dissected elsewhere, to be mapped and made real elsewhere. A writer sees this landscape and is fascinated by it, is inspired by it, picks up his pen in a feverish state, but he is also moved to flee from it, lest he finds himself drowning in the fear of it, and wakes up one day to find he has lost the fascination of words.
It is a shame.