Book – This Mournable Body (pp 229 – 363, Part III Arriving) Author – Tsitsi Dangarembga
Ending of Part II: Leon and Nyasha and trying to take Mai Taka to the hospital. Tambu arranges to be picked up by Tracey to move into her new place and start her new job.
Overarching Themes and Ideas:
Striving for/achieving success… What is success to Tambu? Career, home, marriage (mostly the first two).
Leaving/coming home… What does it mean to Tambu that she left the village, and what does it mean when she returns? Is returning to your family with success the whole point?
Colonization and it’s long term effects… How does a colonized nation become strongly independent? How does a colonized nation move forward without forgetting it’s difficult past and the people who suffered? What is the solution when it comes to white people still living in the nation? How does a once colonized nation handle new countries attempting to get a foothold in their country (ex: Chinese control in Zimbabwe)?
Feminist themes… What roles do women fill in a patriarchal society? How are women treated in such a society? How does being treated like a second class citizen effect women throughout the social hierarchy?
Idea of the womb as home (many references to the womb and Tambu’s womb throughout the book).
Social Hierarchyand Comparison… Tambu struggles constantly with figuring out if she is better or worse than those around her. Tambu struggles with not liking herself, and sometimes hating herself, specifically the “hyena” within her. The main factors she considers when making comparisons are wealth/monetary success, housing/cars/other belongings, career, and race.
The Unknown/Karma… She struggles with the idea that nothing ensures anything… an education does no ensure a job, success or wealth; living in a city away from the village also ensures nothing; even being white and/or European (Leon, Widow Riley) does not ensure that you are protected against suffering.
“I don’t have the things that make me better. I want to be better. I want the things that make me” (p 136).
“Each of a half a dozen gateways arranged in a semicircle around the road leads to a quarter-acre plot. These pieces of land were dissected out of a sprawling farm decades ago as new of sunny Rhodesia–called “God’s own country”–was circulated to attract dissatisfied Europeans…” (p 229).
“The abject scene of Mai Taka and the impossibility of ferrying her to hospital, even though white Cousin-Brother-in-Law was involved, reminded you fearfully that the hardship of your village origins could pursue you in the city as well” (p 230).
Tambu believes if her ducks are in order (on paper everything looks good) then success will be guaranteed (ex: she has a career, a house in the city, is far from the village)
“You must be happy with what you have and how much better it is than where you have been. The long trek from the hostel has ended…You cannot allow anything else to matter” (p 232).
Tambu’s Journey:
Hostel – almost throws stone at Gertrude on bus; does not receive housing or job from Widow Riley. Unemployed.
Mai Manyanga’s house – struggles with unemployment and housemates (Shine, the other two women). Wants to “entrap” a Manyanga brother (only time in the book she seemed interested in men at all). Mai is attacked, her roommate is raped by Shine. She gets a job at the girls school and attacks Elizabeth.
Mental hospital – delirious, confused. Hyena is partially subdued by drugs. At her lowest, feels some solace being “on par” with Widow Riley (also in mental hospital) who thinks Tambu is her daughter Edie.
Nyasha and Leon’s house – Tambu compares herself to her cousin to try to decide who is better off. She must confront difficult truths about how education and race cannot guarantee an easy life. Tambu judges herself and her cousin cyclically. Leon struggles with Nyasha’s work and Nyasha struggles with her “Western” feminist ideals not being respected or taken seriously in her home country. Mai Taka is raped.
Housing development – New job (Green Jacaranda – eco tourism). Finally, she feels she has the things she needs to be better, and yet still feels the hyena within.
“…So we hope it’s just vicious rumors about the government nationalizing everything. This indigenization thing” (p 234). Tracey discusses politics with Tambu, who is uninterested and says she does not believe in politics.
Indigenization: the action or process of bringing something under the control, dominance, or influence of the people native to an area.
In the late 90s and early 2000s, Zimbabwe (under President Mugabe) is beginning to return white owned farmland back to Zimbabweans. Some farms or burned and farmers killed. This also comes up later in the book when Tambu cannot conduct tours on the farm anymore.
“The new legislation states that Britain is obliged to pay for the land seized from the African people during the colonial period. If Britain does not pay, states the law, then the Zimbabwe government is authorised to seize the land without paying compensation. The British government had earmarked £37m for much-needed land reform in Zimbabwe, but Mr Mugabe’s current land grab will not qualify for the funds.”
“The economic effects of Mr Mugabe’s hasty land resettlement are expected to be disastrous. The properties confiscated comprise nearly a quarter of the country’s large-scale farms. Zimbabwe’s commercial farming sector provides 40% of the country’s export earnings and is the largest single employer, supporting 2m. The seizures could also trigger a failure of Zimbabwe’s commercial banks which have lent more than £431m to the farming sector.”
“When Robert Mugabe’s armed followers stormed onto white-owned farms, the output of one of Africa’s most prosperous agriculture sectors collapsed and the country was driven to the brink of starvation. No issue more clearly defines the polarising legacy of the Zimbabwean leader, who died on Friday aged 95. Mugabe always portrayed the redistribution of land as the central task of his mission to undo the racist inheritance of colonial rule, and the economic crisis that followed as a Western conspiracy. To his foes, it was a lawless grab for power and wealth that nearly destroyed the country.”
“The issue was to form the basis of Mugabe’s infamous falling out with British prime minister Tony Blair in 1997 and the invasion of white-owned farms three years later that sent the economy into a tailspin.”
Pedzi – Tambu’s coworker who she fiercely competes with (also from the ad agency). Pedzi is younger, fashionable, and I believe was born in an urban area (not from the village).
“You are dissapointed that your new workplace is not as lavish as the advertising offices had been. You are, however, pleased to be part of a proper establishment and not obliged to improvise in a run-down house like your cousin must” (p 237).
When Tambu is confronted with disappointments in her current situation, she often turns to comparing herself to others to feel better, to reestablish her place in the hierarchy. If she cannot be as successful as she really wants, at least she is still better than someone else.
“The central park, renamed Africa Unity Square from Cecil Square soon after independence, with its paths arranged in the pattern of a British flag…” (p 238).
Tracey explains their clients are Europeans. “The government’s working on the Chinese, which promises to be a great market, but, it’s all bilateral with the Asians, you know…Surely you’ve heard of the implications of that…The Chinese are interested in governments, not people…” (p 242).
“It would not be completely out of place to state that like many African nations, Zimbabwe too is enveloped by Chinese influence, be it with regard to the political, military or the economic class. They all seem to be bowing down to the mighty Chinese who have invested heavily in the Zimbabwean economy and who the locals fear would take away their assets on account of consistent loan defaults. Simply put, China’s power and clout in Zimbabwe can be recognized from the fact that despite numerous cases of rampant abuse by Chinese employers of the local labor force no measures have been taken by the government. Things have deteriorated to such an extent that local employees have even been shot dead by a Chinese employer at a mine when the labourers demanded their legitimate outstanding wages.”
“Over time, the anti Chinese sentiments in Zimbabwe have been steadily growing as people have begun to realize that they are being oppressed to serve Chinese vested interests. A traditional leader in Mashonaland Central Province of Zimbabwe, Chief Chiweshe accused the Chinese nationals of looting vast mineral resources like chrome and gold and even highlighted the abusive and detrimental role played by China in the liberation struggle for an independent Zimbabwe.”
China and Soviet Union provided weapons and training during Bush Wars (lates 70s and 80s)
Mai Moetsabi – Queen of Africa Boutique (Tambu looks up to her). From Botswana.
Sister Mai Gamu – a powerful politicians third or fourth wife who has a business space in Tambu’s work building. The politician owns the building. Mai Gamu is scary.
“These events raise your anxiety levels once again. The question of who can and who cannot, who does and who does not succeed, returns to echo ominously, bringing bitterness back into your soul. You doubt that, were you put to such a test, you would find the inner resources to triumph as Mai Moetsabi has. You are discouraged by thoughts that it is only a matter of time until your work tosses further trials your way, even though your energy is still depleted by events that took your to Nyasha’s. Once more, you hear the hyena laughing as your drift off to sleep” (p 253).
“Your niece and nephew visit you in your new home perhaps twice a month. They enjoy your pool” (p 259).
It is interesting how the author chose to time-jump to this and not include a scene where Tambu and Nyasha discuss what happened with Mai Taka. I think the author chose to do this to further show Tambu’s character, and how she refuses to be upset or derailed by other’s suffering.
P 260 – 264 Tambu has an impending sense of doom, that she might do something horrible again. Ma’Tabitha brings Tambu the bag of mealie meal (Nyasha’s daughter brought it back to her). Tambu is upset she didn’t hide it better, and then upset that she didn’t eat it to begin with. Tambu gets drunk and hallucinates and/or dreams horrible things. She feels the ants. She buries the mealie meal.
“They hyena laughs as you enter the gate. It has slunk once more as close to you as your skin, ready to drag away the last scraps of certainty you have preserved the moment you falter” (p 261).
“You should have eaten it, you reprimand yourself, cooked your mother’s love while at Mai Manyanga’s and taken it into your body. In this way, you would have made a home wherever your are” (p 261).
“A scream wails about the room, making the windowpanes shudder. You clamp your teeth. The cry continues. It is the howl you had wished that girl Elizabeth to utter. It was meant to be her, so that you would not have to scream it” (p 264).
P 267 Tambu finally decides to reach out to Elizabeth’s family after she struggles to work and sleep for several days (maybe weeks).
Tambu finds out Elizabeth has gone deaf in one ear.
p 269 Tambu arrives at Elizabeth’s house and apologizes to her mother. The mother says her daughter is angry at her, Elizabeth feels her mother did not protect her.
“This time the mother does not have the strength to shake you off. Grief flows to and fro through your intertwined fingers, and the tears from your two faces mingle so it is as though you are washing your hands. Ah, how you wish the tears would cleanse away everything the four hands hold” (p 270).
P 272 Tambu does not spend money on Elizabeth’s ENT surgeon (as promised) and spends the money on herself (beautifying herself and buying nice clothes).
P 273 “nganga” = herbalist or spiritual healer in many African societies
P 277 Tambu gets her driver license after months of trying and is offered a promotion, guiding tours.
“Thus the patina of what your mother, with stinging distate labelled “the Englishness,” which you acquired at the Young Ladies’ College of the Sacred Heart, at last turns into a grand advantage…Not in a place that you can call home, but itinerant, away from the homestead and from your office on Jason Mayo, you become a star” (p 279).
“Well, there’s been trouble. Some of those…thugs…skellems who call themselves ex-combatants, or war vets…they’ve occupied the rondavels. They’re hunting the game. And they’re camping in our tourists’ village!” (p 289).
This is referencing attacks on white farms that occurred in the late 90s/early 2000s.
The situation is difficult… the Stevenson’s likely took that farmland from indigenous Zimbabweans to begin with. Now, Tambu, a native Zimbabwean, is having her job affected because ex-combatants are attempting to take back what they see is rightfully theirs. De-colonization is extremely difficult. Re-distributing farmlands that once belonged to Zimbabweans mean removing white land owners (who may or may not have even been alive when Rhodesia was first developed). The Rhodesian army and even Rhodesian police before the fight for independence often treated Zimbabweans with cruelty. Obviously, it was cruel enough they pushed them out of their own space for their colony. Forming a cycle of ending violence with more violence.
“‘You have a rural background, Tambu. You embody it. That’s how you can, if you’re up to it, take on the brand we created up on the farm. This time in the village.’ ‘Queen of the village!’ snorts Pedzi” (p 291).
“That’s a murungu” (P 296)
Murungu: “in the colonial period, the word took over as denoting both the white employer and Europeans generally on account of their skin pigmentation…the name murungu has become part of the urban youth culture which generates some of the catchiest popular sayings in Zimbabwe. Murungu is to be found denoting a person who has money, called so by those who don’t have as much as he/she does…Murungu is no longer just a white skinned man or woman; murungu is now someone with not just economic but political power.” (Found on a Humanities discussion board, Univeristy of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 2007).
P 300 – 314 Visiting the homestead.
Tambu’s mother is upset with her for being away so long and not sending back money or food.
Tambu’s mother is being abused by her father.
Tambu’s mother has Freedom and Concept (Tambu’s nieces) to help her on the homestead
“After so long, Mai, I am empowered. That is why I can come now…It was not a question of not knowing the womb, but one of not knowing how to come back to it” (p 302).
“You have come down here to start your madness about white people again, Tambudzai. Isn’t that why you have been nothing all this time, because of too much of those people? Leave them alone. Go and find your own thing. This is what I can tell you” (p 305).
“The constant tension from not knowing whether or not you were as you were meant to be, the brutal fighting to answer affirmatively that question, and its damage” (p 307).
“‘All the village? Everyone?’ Your mother’s expression clouds over again. ‘I thought you said the women are going to do the work. everything that needs to be done? How will we manage if we have to anything with these men interfering?” (p 317).
“‘Every five years’ Tracey mutters. ‘We’ll be endangered every five years, people like me. Have our home razed to the ground. You know, the Roman Empire used to do that with slaves and people. Just for votes” (p 326).
P 328 Kiri and Aunt Lucia tell Tambu she should not do her village project.
“You do not enjoy anything…Shame fills you. You want only to close your eyes and not open them until it is payday. It does not matter now whether the women rebel or not. Your treachery has been committed” (p 354).
Tambu’s mother throws the tourists camera. He retrieves it and is apologetic.
“You think you are obeying your boss’s instructions…You burst with it and fall down next to your mother” (p 358).
“You umbilical cord is buried on the homestead; in the empty space that widens within at every step, you feel its tugging” (p 361).
Tambu resigns from Jacaranda Safari’s and gets a job with her Aunt and Kiri at AK Security.
