Technology and the death of oral story telling

tortoise_hareSekai Nzenza
ORAL storytelling in the village is dying. In fact, it is almost dead because we have stopped telling the stories our elders used to tell us. Like most elders in the village, my grandmother, Mbuya VaMandirowesa did not read but she carried many stories in her memory. We sat there, wide eyed as she took us away many miles back in time. She told us humorous fables about  a time when animals could talk.

She would begin a story by saying something like this: “Kare kare kwazvo mhuka dzichiri kutaura, Sekuru Gudo vakati kuna Muzukuru Tsuro, huya ndikurume nzeve.” In translation, “Once upon a time when animals could still talk, Uncle Baboon said to Nephew Rabbit, give me your ear and let me give you advice.”

Whenever Mbuya began a story like that, we moved closer to her, our ears ready to listen, our skinny knees touching, sitting cross-legged around the fire and looking at Mbuya in the dim fire light. Throughout the story telling, she paused and we answered in agreement,

“Dzepfunde”, waiting for the moment when she would sing. We got up and danced to the song with the rhythm of sadness or joy, depending on the story. Each story had a moral or educational message. It was not just a story. Sometimes she would tell a whole story in metaphors, proverbs and riddles only.

My grandmother and many of the elders are gone now. Over the years, we are experiencing technological changes here and globally. As a result of this change, we are witnessing the death of oral story telling.

I saw this death of stories with my own eyes on Friday night back in the village. My cousin Piri and I travelled from Harare and went back to the village expecting to find everyone in Tsungai Burial Society gathered and ready for the special meeting to plan our Christmas party.

Tsungai was formed more than 15 years ago as an insurance to help support the community when there was a death in the family due to HIV and Aids or other diseases. A member pays a dollar per month.

I am still the president of the burial society although I was never voted for. They chose me three years ago when the society had very little money or asserts apart from a couple of coffins and a few dollars in the bank. Those dollars had already become worthless due to hyperinflation. One day I was back in the village after my many years in the Diaspora and I happened to see a group of women in a serious meeting paruware, at the flat rocks. I joined them and on that day, I became a member of the burial society. Over the past three years we formed Simukai Development Project, a progressive offshoot of Tsungai Burial Society.

We are still burying people but not as much as we used to do. Three weeks ago we buried Mai Gasva and it was done with such dignity and respect. She was a long term member of the society and a great preacher in the Vapostori church. Our Burial society sang, danced and cooked food for everyone. The Vapositori also came in their green and white uniforms. At this funeral, three weeks ago, we agreed that we were going to have a party to celebrate our progress in the development projects and dance to the mystery and joy of life. The last time we did this was three years ago.

We agreed that we would all meet this last Friday at Mai Zii’s house on the flat rocks, paruware, where we always meet. We planned to make the final arrangements for the Christmas party which would include the burial society members, all the preschool kids and every kid who has lost one or both parents.

Piri and I arrived late because it was raining and I had to drive very slowly on the potholes full of water, navigating the road in the thick mist. I feared sliding off the road or getting stuck in the red soil and having to go and ask people with yoked cattle to come and help us pull the car out.  We finally got to the village well after sunset. I parked the car in front of my mother’s kitchen hut and we walked the few kilometres to the ruware to meet the women. We knew they would be sitting in Mai Zii’s big kitchen hut, talking, laughing and sharing stories of the past and present as they often do. They women would wait in Mai Zii’s house because Mai Zii is the chairwoman of the Burial Society.

At Mai Zii’s house, we were greeted by a group of youths, several of them, mostly boys and only a couple of girls standing around the granary, playing with cell phones. There was nobody in Mai Zii’s kitchen hut except a chicken nesting behind the door and making a lot of noise. We asked where the women were and one boy said half of the women who lived across Chinyika River had left fearing the river flooding. But those who stayed this side of the river were all inside Mai Zii’s three bedroom house.

The door was closed but through the window, we could see the lights flashing on and off. This asbestos roofed house is less than a year old.

It was built with proceeds from Tecla, Mai Zii’s daughter who went to London a few years ago. She works in a nursing home looking after British old ladies. Although Tecla cannot afford to come home because she is a refugee, she is able to send money for the building of her mother’s house.

“Is Mai Zii unwell?” I asked the boys. They just smiled and kept on pointing to the house. We could hear the sound of music on television. I said to Piri, “How can that be possible?  I have never seen a television here in the village. Never.” We knocked and entered. And there they were all 30 or more of them, sitting on the sofas and some on the floor. Mai Zii is a very large woman. Wearing a short brown wig, she sat on the single sofa near the television, totally in control of the remote devices. They were watching a movie which I recognised immediately as “How Stella got her Groove Back,” based on Terry McMillan’s book, starring Angela Basset and Whoopi Goldberg.

Piri whispered that Mai Zii’s son works as a waiter in South Africa and he is responsible for the solar, the music system, the generator and the sofas that we were sitting on. His wife brings the original DVD’s after each visit to South Africa. She also buys the pirated ones from Mbare and Mupedzanhamo market where they cost one dollar for two. It does not matter whether it’s the latest movie on the market or the old James Bond film from the 1980s, they are all one dollar for two. That price is also the same for the less desirable DVDs of scantily dressed young women parading themselves without care of anyone seeing them naked.

Mai Zii put the video on pause and we all greeted each other with warmth and laughter. I apologised for being late and said we could still get on with the planning if this was alright for everyone still around.  The response was a unanimous no. They would rather watch the movie tonight before the youth who owns it takes it back to Harare the next day. Mai Zii had only borrowed it for the evening. In fact, all the youths outside were waiting for their turn to watch it and they were worried that the solar power could easily run out before they had a chance to watch one or two DVDs. Before I could say the DVD was really not suitable for the youth, Piri said, “Ino ndiyo village yakaspaka,” meaning this village sparks with life. She made herself comfortable on the floor and asked Mai Zii to press play. Then everyone’s eyes were focused on the screen.

I whispered to Piri that the house was hot and full of sweaty bodies. “I did not come here to watch television,” I told her. “What?” she shouted loudly and everyone turned to us momentarily before their eyes were fixed on the television screen again. Someone then said Mai Zii’s children had done very well for everyone in the village because they now have a place to relax, pekutandarira. “Mai Zii vakatigonera,” she whispered to me. And I wanted to say, what do you mean? You sit here, watching movies when you do not understand most words in English. How can you smile and look happy watching a world you will never experience? And what makes you think Angela Basset is happy in that movie? This is just fantasy and there is nothing real to it.

Then I felt this sudden urge to tell them to switch the television off so we could all talk, sing, dance or even pray. I really want to stand up and tell them that there was no need for us to be squashed in this hot room watching a DVD about Hollywood celebrities.

But I said nothing. Did I not only read the Terry McMillan book many years ago myself? Did I not go and see the movie on the big screen when it first came out? I remembered enjoying the movie very much because all the men in it were very fit and good looking, walking along the Jamaican beaches. Maybe I was a hypocrite. Or maybe I was not.

In the end, I just sat there on the sofa, thinking that most of these widows in the village were lonely at night. Coming here to watch a video some nights must be a relief from all the hard work in the fields trying to feed the family. But what did this mean about oral story telling? Here were these women, the custodians of traditional culture, sitting here getting hot and flustered watching Angela Basset getting all nice and cozy with a young man old enough to be her son in “How Stella Got her Groove Back”. These women who have remained in the village have a role to tell the stories of our past and pass on knowledge to the children. But their faces were lost to the dreams of a faraway place called Hollywood in America where people are beautiful, rich and happy most of the time. No ancient story about baboons and rabbits was ever going to come out of their heads.

When the movie finished, Piri and I walked back home in the dark. I listened to the frogs competing to be head, the sound of an owl and saw the sudden flash of lightening followed by a distant thunder. Then Piri said, “So, when are you buying the DVD player for the village?

If you give me US$10 I can buy as many DVDs as possible. The village will not be boring anymore.”  Piri has this manner of asking me questions relating to money or new purchases as if I am the only one who should pay. I tell her that I do not come to the village to watch a video. If I wanted to see one, there were plenty of them in town. “I want peace and quiet, to listen to the owls, the frogs and other night creatures then sit outside and watch the full moon and the stars. The village is not a place for videos,” I said. Piri stopped, turned around to me and said, “Give me solar power, fresh water from a borehole nearby, broiler chickens, music system, DVD player and videos any time and the village is mine. Throw in a fridge, beer and occasionally, a good man and we are fine. Why suffer from bills and town stress when you can live here with no hassles, no water or electricity cuts. Ha?”

Maybe Piri was right. Who would have thought these widespread networks would reach our remote villages and progressively kill the oral tradition of storytelling? It is not possible to run away from electronic mass media, including radio and television. We cannot stop Tom Cruise, Angela Basset or Angelina Jolly from visiting the village solar powered screens. At the same time, there must be a place for digital technology to preserve traditional storytelling, keep the stories told to us by our ancestors alive, interesting and engaging. Then we commit them to memory, or better still to writing, so others can read and retell the story to the next generations.

  •  Dr Sekai Nzenza is a writer and cultural critic. She holds a PhD in International Relations and works as a development consultant.

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