Early one morning, a messenger arrived at Mbuya’s home, out of breath and worried. “Will you come?” he managed to say between gulps of air. A young woman named Paida, who was expecting her fifth child, was having a terrible time during a prolonged period of labor.
My grandmother looked at me and I knew what to do before she had to say anything. “Gadzirai bota renjera, ndirimunzira”—“Have them prepare a thin porridge from rapoko millet. I’m on my way”—my grandmother tells the messenger, who runs off ahead as I rush to collect her medicine bag. We know we are nearing Paida’s homestead when we hear the messenger shout, “Prepare thin rapoko porridge! Mbuya Mafukeni is coming!”
Paida’s grandmother sighs with relief as we enter her homestead. The yard is empty of men except for a few boys playing near a mango tree. We can hear the groans of a woman coming from a nearby cooking hut, and so without a word or the usual greetings, we quickly rush into the hut. Paida is sitting on the floor with one leg stretched toward the door. Her big belly is exposed and one hand rests on the side of her back. The color is drained from her lips, leaving a whitish ring.
I glance around the room and notice a pile of red anthill soil nearby and know she has been eating it. Due to malnutrition and iron deficiency, pregnant women in my community tend to crave soil from anthills. In a few years’ time, I would find myself doing the same thing while pregnant. Only later did I learn that this practice of eating iron-fortified soil or dirt is called geophagia.
Paida’s eyes are tightly closed, and I can see each wave of pain roll through her as she twists her mouth from side to side. Though I am quite young, my intuition and my experience tell me there is something different about Paida’s groans. Each groan is weaker than the one before and she sweats profusely. Paida’s grandmother joins us. She sits near her granddaughter, dabbing her forehead with a towel. There is concern and fear in her eyes.
When a cousin brings the porridge, Paida’s grandmother feeds it to the struggling woman. I keep staring at Paida’s big, exposed belly, until Mbuya Mafukeni runs me outside to go play with the other children. I go but I remain near the hut, knowing that Mbuya will call me when she needs assistance or medicine from her bag. After all, she is going blind and it takes her forever to find what she needs. I camp near the door, where I can peep inside without the elders seeing me.
“I’m worried she is too exhausted,” Mbuya Mafukeni tells Paida’s grandmother. “Would you make more porridge?” Mbuya fears that Paida won’t have the energy to release chavakuru (the placenta) or produce milk. The porridge, she explains, will induce lactation, which is needed in case the placenta gets stuck.
In observing Paida, Mbuya Mafukeni predicts the birth of a baby girl, and after a few more hours of labor, it is so. When the child is finally born, Mbuya Mafukeni quickly brings the baby to Paida’s breast. Talking softly, my grandmother welcomes the baby into the world and begs the newly born daughter to suck her mother’s breast. As the baby sucks, my grandmother kneads Paida’s belly and her placenta is released. Sighing with satisfaction, Mbuya Mafukeni says, “Nyadenga atinzwa”—“The One who resides in the heavens [God] has heard us.”
After what seems like a long time, Mbuya Mafukeni ties the umbilical cord, leaving a piece hanging to be retrieved later for another birth ritual. My grandmother hands the baby back to her mother. Paida’s grandmother emits a singsong, high-pitched, trilling ululation off her tongue as she welcomes her great-granddaughter into the world. After cleaning up and making sure Paida and the baby are doing well, we return home, exhausted and relieved. We have witnessed another difficult but successful birth.
I accompanied my grandmother on many such births, just as I accompanied her on many foraging expeditions where she taught me the power of herbs, berries, bark, and seeds. From a very young age, I knew the danger of birth and also its beauty. Now I am a grown woman who has birthed her own children, and who has been born anew many times already in my life. I have seen and heard the birth and awakening stories of many women from all over the world.
I know some of us have been malnourished, as Paida was, and I know some of us have birthed so many times in so many different ways that we do not know if we can make it through another delivery. I know some of us have groaned and cried and labored long into the night without being heard. I know there are seeds that have lain, long fallow, aching for fields in which to be planted.
But this I also know, my sisters: there is a Great Hunger within you, and you still have the strength to give it life. I am ready to help you ride through those waves of pain and fear. I know the recipes to sustain you through long periods of exhaustion. I know how to perform the celebratory rituals. I know how to prepare the soil. I hear the world waking up, my sisters, and so I collect my medicine bag and gather the seeds.
When I talk about sacred dreams, I am talking about a global movement that we can see and touch and hear with our own senses. For it is one that I see and hear everywhere I go, and it is one that I know so well from my own life journey. And I know that I can help you see and hear and touch it, too.
I want to be a midwife for this movement in you, as my grandmother was to hundreds of women, stirring you to name and recall and pursue your most sacred dreams, so that you are part of this global waking up. I want to do my duty as the granddaughter of a seed keeper to nourish you and to ease your transformation as you grow your sacred purpose.
Planting the Seeds for Change
Beloved sister, in order to give birth to what lies down in the depths of your being, you will need rootedness and groundedness—a ritual that centers you from all the chores, the soul wounds, and all the subtle and not so subtle silencing in the world. In my travels, I often tell people that if you feel depressed or angry inside, it’s probably because you have yet to create a strong platform for your dreams. I know this because I buried my dreams under a rock. Literally. In doing so, I rooted my being.
After running away from Zuda, I was overwhelmed with my situation, a mother of three children with only a ninth-grade education. Even though I was home with my people, most of all with my mother, my grandmothers, and my aunts, fear of how I would survive without an income plagued me. Am I now settling for a poor rural life? How will I sustain my children? What will happen to my baby girls when they grow up? Will they follow the same pathway I did?
Weeks passed and I fell into an old familiar routine. Early in the mornings and into the evenings, I’d work long hours in the fields alongside my mother, arriving home late at night, feeling hungry and tired. At dawn, before the rooster from our village begins its first call, we’d plow the field and sow rapoko, sorghum, groundnuts, and maize. Soon, the crops began to emerge from the earth, competing with the weeds.
For six weeks after that, with only our hand hoes, we’d weed the fields until our backs couldn’t take it anymore. When the weeding was done, we would rest and wait for the rains to end. On weekends, I would help tend my mother’s vegetable gardens.
The reality of my situation was clearer than ever, and even as I fell into a rhythm of planting, weeding, and tending the fields and gardens, miles away from my abusive husband, I remained despondent.
For as long as I could remember, I dreamed of getting an education. There was not even opportunity for me to attend kindergarten. It never existed. Instead, like many children in the village, I spent my early childhood chasing birds and grasshoppers in my parents’ fields. In addition to herding cattle, I worked the land and took care of my siblings, like many other girls of my acquaintance.
We girls would rather be in school, but what little education existed prior to and during the war was offered mainly to boys, since they are expected to become family wage earners. As future providers, boys are valued over girls, most of whom are married at a very young age. While I understood how important it was for boys to be educated to get good jobs, I wondered why girls could not also be educated to become future providers and community role models.
Growing up, I saw how
poverty, war, and the absence of a reliable safety net affected everyone—but none more than poor women in rural areas with no access to education. They perform the grueling work of feeding and caring for their families. Even if they wish for a different kind of life, financial dependence forces many to remain in abusive and polygamous marriages. The prevalence of polygamy and the corresponding looser attitude toward male sexual promiscuity often means that women are made the scapegoats for every kind of problem. The situation felt hopeless to the women of my community who foresaw the same difficult path for their daughters and granddaughters.
Out in the fields, I daydreamed a lot about getting a formal education, as there was so much I wanted to know! My favorite part of herding was when the older herders would decide to pass time in the fields by teaching the young ones to read and write. My brother Tinashe taught me words that I practiced by sewing letters of the alphabet onto leaves. I enjoyed creating songs that helped me to remember the five vowels, especially when older herders reminded me that many of our words begin with vowels (a, e, i, o, u). For example:
“a” for aaaha! amai, ambuya! (mother, grandmother)
“e” for ehee! enda, evo! (go, yes)
“i” for iii! iwe, ini! (you, me)
“o” for ooo! ona, ose! (see, all)
“u” for uuu! uya, unogona! (come, you can do it)
Because we did not have pens, pencils, or paper, we used charcoal, thorns from the mubayamhondoro tree (known as “elephant thorns”), plant pods, and leaves from a broad-leaved native tree called muchakacha. Thorns are also used as needles that help us string sheets of the muchakacha leaves together. Muchakacha leaves are so broad that they work just like the pages of a book. And with the thorns, we etched words onto the long, green pods. As they dried, the writing became more visible and permanent. Digging and weeding in my mother’s gardens, I remembered the sweet smell of the muchakacha’s golden fruit, the way the leaves felt cool and thick in my hands, and the illuminating power they contained with words and letters on them.
My mind drifted back to another time, before I married Zuda, when my mother and I, along with many people in the community, attended a freedom fighters rally in the center of the village. Although some freedom fighters committed atrocities against civilians during the war, the words I heard that day from the impressive speaker stuck with me. “The colonial system denies us education so that it can oppress us more easily,” the man said. He stood on an old anthill mound near a rock as a crowd gathered around him.
His stature was imposing, with his AK-47 tightly belted around his waist, his shiny green uniform fatigues almost a perfect match for his blackish-green beret, and a long cigar in his mouth. His thick voice boomed through the crowd. “To educate is to empower and to empower is to liberate and to liberate is to allow people to gain their dignity,” his voice rang out into the otherwise silent night. “Can you imagine what would happen if all of you were educated and able to read and write?” he implored the crowd.
A round of “Amen”s rose from the men and the women ululated. I wanted to be like him: educated and an eloquent orator. That day I made the connection between education and my own freedom—freedom that enabled the empowerment and dignity of my very being.
I remembered, too, the American and British women who came to do research in my country after we won our independence. They wore glasses as they opened and closed notebooks full of information that was inaccessible to me. They talked casually about getting their master’s degrees or their doctorates. I wanted those glasses so badly. I wanted the power and information that in my mind came with them.
When I mentioned these memories and the hunger they had long stirred in me to my mother as we sat preparing dinner later that night, she nodded with understanding. “We marry off our girls in exchange for cows as a form of bride price,” my mother said knowingly. “And we have accepted the bride price because it’s designed to nurture relationships and our culture. But it isn’t working. Without education and their own sources of income, we subject our women to abuse. They rely heavily on men’s income and never gain dignity, and the next generation of girls repeats the cycle.” I let her words sink in as I added cold water to a pot of sadza (cornmeal) and stirred it over the kitchen fire.
I, too, would have repeated the cycle had I not met a stranger in my village a few weeks later. As though the stars were aligned, an American woman named Jo Luck arrived in my village, coinciding with a time when I was at my lowest point. This seemingly free-spirited and independent stranger exuded a kind of joy similar to what I felt on the day that Zimbabwe became a free country. During the early days of independence, a sense of hope was infectious between my people and strangers. Grandmothers, mothers, and daughters believed that the country was now on a path that would offer them many more opportunities.
The American found me and a dozen other women seated on the ground in a circle with only our Zambia cloths to protect us from insects and other crawly creatures and to preserve our already threadbare dresses. She asked to join the circle and, without hesitation, sat next to me as though she joined circles like ours every day. One woman placed an old reed mat under her. I had never before seen a white woman in such close proximity to black women, let alone in our poor, rural village.
The stranger began to speak. Before I could even hear what she was saying, I was hypnotized by her voice. It sounded like a lullaby, rising and falling as every vowel was enunciated (I later learned that this is how Southerners in the US speak). She told the group, “My organization works in many countries around the world. I have seen women who were once illiterate learn to read and write. They can feed, clothe, and educate their children. I have seen poor children who were previously denied education attend school. Some of the children even go on to higher education.”
I was quiet. At twenty-two years of age, I could not believe what Jo Luck’s translator was conveying to us. No one had ever spoken of the possibility of education for older women like me. I did not know what to make of the discussion. But I thought that maybe this was the opportunity I had been hoping for.
Women in the circle shared their worries about the lack of food and clothing and costs associated with their children’s schools. They shared their hopes for a better life with more sources of income and food security as well as better education for their children. As is the tradition, we offered the stranger bambara nuts, which are derived from a common, but much appreciated plant that enriches the soil. However, when the nuts are cooked, the water turns a dirty shade of brown. I am transfixed as the woman dips her polished fingernails into the murky water to gather some nuts. I was amazed that she just sat on the ground with us in her pretty dress. Coming from a culture that pays attention to body language, I appreciated how at ease she seemed. And so the conversation flowed.
I didn’t know if Jo Luck noticed how I looked at her, but at some point she turned to me and said, “You have been quiet, what are your dreams?” I hesitated because I was afraid that the translator might not convey my thoughts in a way that the woman could understand. I felt very shy. The women in my circle knew of my wish to be educated, but I did not even have a high school diploma. I could see the curiosity and concern in their eyes.
Looking down, I thought to myself, “I’m not going to talk about the poverty in my family, the abuse, or the lack of food. I want to talk about my own education.” My mother’s words echoed in my mind. “Someone needs to break the cycle,” she had said. Could it be me? I allowed myself to wonder.
I said to Jo Luck: “My name is Tererai and I want to go to America to get an education. I want to get an undergraduate degree, a master’s degree, and a PhD.” This was the first time that I uttered aloud the dreams I harbored.
Silence followed my declaration. No one could believe that I spoke of obtaining an education, let alone going to America to obtain three degrees! While the women knew of my wish to be educated, they couldn’t believe that I would say something seemingly impossible, g
iven the fact that I did not have a high school diploma. Even I am not sure how I mustered the courage to speak, let alone to be so ambitious about where I wanted to get my education.
I suppose I knew that with only two major universities in my country, it was unlikely that I’d be able to earn a degree in Zimbabwe. Unlike me, with only high school correspondence certificates, many qualified people with formal classroom education have been denied a place in one of our colleges, and it was clear to me that the competition at home was incredibly tough. This meant that my true chance for higher education was in America.
My knowledge of America was relatively recent. As our country enjoyed its newly gained independence, radios, newspapers, and visitors from afar became carriers of the hidden world: they brought information that we had never been exposed to before. Finally, the world had opened its excitements, thrills, and anticipations to our ravaged, poverty-stricken villages. Place names such as America, Australia, New Zealand, China, et cetera, became part of our new vocabulary. Great Britain was an old song that we associated with our suffering, subordination, inferiority, and oppression. America was a new song and seemed to stand out as we learned more about the civil rights movement and the work of Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, as well as musicians like BB King, Tracy Chapman, and Dolly Parton. America sounded to my evolving sense of the world like a place of possibility, and so I threw my dreams out in that direction.
This was a pivotal moment. I had no idea that speaking these words aloud would transform my life in the most remarkable ways. In the moment, I knew my friends were wondering “What about the kids?” and “What will your husband say?” Worries came flooding back almost as soon as I made my declaration.
I didn’t know if the stranger understood my situation. When I finished talking, I was so overwhelmed that I began to doubt my sanity. But seeing my passion, she said, “If you desire and believe in your dreams, they are achievable.” In my native language, the phrase “it’s achievable” translates to tinogona. She continued, “Take mental notes of the things you want to achieve in life and you will achieve them.” Tinogona. This became my rallying cry, my prayer. I later learned that Jo Luck was a director of international programs with Heifer International, a nonprofit based in Little Rock, Arkansas, that works to end hunger and poverty in the world. In late 1992, she became its president and CEO.
The Awakened Woman Page 6
