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The Reader  With Lovemore Ranga Mataire
THE major problem with Zimbabwe’s history makers or politicians in particular, is their seemingly lethargic attitude towards writing and documenting their own stories.

Very often, foreigners take the mantle of interpreting our experiences in their own world-view. It is out of this deficiency of a narrative reflecting our own experiences that Kennedy Grant Dick Manyika felt hard-pressed to document his own life probably for the benefit of future generations who may derive inspiration from his humble upbringing.

The product of Manyika’s reflection is Beyond My Dreams, the amazing story of a village boy who defied all odds to become an educationist, diplomat and Christian leader.

Manyika’s diction in his narrative is simple but compelling taking the reader from his humble beginnings as the son of Dick Kwaramba born in 1890 and belonged to the Chiweshe clan of the Mutenhesanwa — Shava totem.

“His wife (his mother) was from Maringare near Marondera village and was the daughter of Chief Nenguwo Mushayachiwuya of the Shumba Nyamuzihwa totem,” says Manyika as he chronicles his family background.

The idea of going deeper into his ethnic roots is deliberately infused in the narrative as it illustrates the author’s keen sense of his history and his pride in being not just African but also meant to educate other readers who may not be aware of the totem system of kinship and marriage as a distinguishing feature of the Shona people in Zimbabwe, which is also common in other cultures like in Native America and Australian Aborigines.

It is interesting to note that Manyika goes a long way in explaining and describing the significance of totems in the African way of doing things.

The totem system, he says, is based on the grouping of clans under an ensign which is usually descriptive of the unique prowess or character of the group.

He explains: “A totem is a shared symbol of clan, or those related by blood.

The Shona people can tell by totems whether or not they are related, and how they are related and how close or distant the relationship may be. This is of particular importance in determining who marries who.

As a general rule, those who share the same totem are closely related by blood, and would not ordinarily be permitted to marry. The reference to totems is also important in that it’s reflective of Manyika being indigenously rooted in Zimbabwe.

In other words Manyika’s lengthy description of his clan and totem is indicative of him being a native at a time when the country was still under white colonial occupation. Despite being a native, his father was constantly humiliated by whites on account of him being black.

One of the most humiliating experiences of any black man was to call every white man “bhasa”, a corruption of the word boss while every white woman was called “Madam”, a term that epitomised high stature.

One of the other painful of experiences as highlighted by Manyika was that in the eyes of the white man every black man was the same, old or young. Every black man was called “Jim”, “boy” or “kaffir” or “native”.

The worst was being called a bobojan, which meant baboon while black women were called nannies or mafazi.

It was within such a racialised environment that Manyika, who was born on September 12, 1922 at Kadyamadare, 58 east of the then Salisbury, was raised.

Manyika says the absence of schools in the vicinity of his environs did not mean that children grew up as ignoramuses. There was much to learn and much to do for young people in that every elderly person was concerned with helping the young people become the men and women they were expected to be.

“There was great care not only in disciplining the young people, but also in setting an example. In my village the young people, particularly those who had learnt the lessons of the elders, were much respected. They worked hard to make our village self-sufficient in all things.”(page 9).

Education derived from the elders was rigorous and practical in that it inculcated in the young impressionable minds survival tools in a closely neat egalitarian set-up where the term “orphan” never existed as any child was everyone’s child.