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Sekai Nzenza My cousin Piri wants to move out of the city and work on a farm. Recently she found out that some new farmers’ wives are too busy at the office and at church. They do not have time to go to the farms with their husbands. Or maybe these urban, mostly professional women
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Sekai Nzenza IN the dry season, long before the missionaries arrived in this country, the elders always gathered for the bira, an all night ceremony to honour the spirits of our ancestors. Although most of us in this village are Christians, we have not stopped the bira. Last week, we
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I WAS not the only one who danced to the songs by the Bhundu Boys in a Harare bar in Glen Norah B last Sunday. The songs were filled with past memories, forcing you to dance as if you were back in the village again. Apart
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TSIKAMUTANDA witch hunters are on their way to our village. A few weeks ago, somewhere along the Save River, they found many witches and wizards in possession of various gnome-like creatures called zvikwambos, tokoloshi, zvidhoma, snakes, heavy
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Sekai Nzenza TODAY, I did not go into the busy Mupedzanhamo market with Piri and her business partner Chandi. Instead, I have taken a walk in the Mbare’s Pioneer Cemetery, which is just opposite the market. I am looking for moments of peace and history. In some countries, cemeteries
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Sekai Nzenza “HAVE you ever been to Victoria Falls?” I asked my cousin Piri as we drove towards the Hwedza Mountains at sunset. We were going to the village, coming from Harare, as we often do.
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IT is Sunday afternoon and I am trying to write something good, interesting and inspiring for this column. But I am struggling to do so because in the next room, the noise of the blaring television and women’s laughter, chikwee, is interrupting
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My cousin Piri and I heard that the mulberries were in abundance at the village compound of Jemba and his sister-in-law Mai Esinati. When we arrived at Jemba’s house, only a few kilometres from our village, the homestead seemed deserted except for a couple of skinny hungry dogs,
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Sekai Nzenza MY eleven-year-old niece Edna came home from school crying. Some kid called her “Sudan”, meaning she was very black. This was not the first time Edna had been called names like that. Edna is very dark skinned or simply, very black. Her eyebrows and eye lashes are very black too and so is […]
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“IF I HAD education, like a degree or something and I was not HIV positive, I would have taken that cousin of yours. Reuben, that one, I tell you, he is a man among men,” said Chandisaita. She said this two weeks ago, before the harmonised elections, when we were enjoying a barbecue and sunset […]
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SOON after the harmonised elections last Wednesday, it was business as usual at Mupedzanhamo Market in Mbare at 8am on Friday morning. We got there early because my cousin Piri had an appointment with her old friend Chandisaita. Or just Chandi. They planned to go into a joint business venture ordering and selling
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“ THESE days, what makes news is violence, tragedy, angry emotions and maybe some African tribesmen jumping up and down with axes threatening to kill each other,” said my cousin Reuben, the one who is visiting from Australia. He said this when we were back in the village last
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WHEN we lived in the village compound, the elders referred to a good person as munhu, meaning he was a human being with certain behaviours and characteristics that made him a good person. Munhu. This person had hunhu or ethics and morals deeply rooted in our culture. He or she was imbued with the goodness, compassion, respect, honesty
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WHEN we lived in the village, before the liberation war, there was no phone anywhere nearby, except at Muzorori & Sons Store. The other phones were at Hwedza Hospital, Kwenda Methodist Mission and also in Mr Jack’s store at Kwenda. In those days, our relatives from
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I USED to dance to the sound of mbira. Rhythm came naturally to me. I had this effortless movement to stamp my feet in unison with everyone. But, at the Book Café in Harare last Friday, I discovered that I no longer have the rhythm to dance to the sound of mbira. It’s gone. In its place are some unco-ordinated body movements lacking