To the Man who wrote “Things Fall Apart”

A humble tribute to Chinua Achebe

 

To you sir, it was just a book, a novel telling a story of an Africa that once was, an Africa that was populated with dignified people, who had structure, knowledge, medicine, wisdom and who inhabited a land that was of their birth. To you sir, it was an account of what might have been; of a time when our communities were structured by who we were and what we believed, before the great and calamitous invasion. I thank you for this. You told a story, but to me it was more than that. For me it was THE STORY that changed everything.

 



 To me sir, Things Fall Apart was the mirror that was held to my face, a mirror which showed me an image of myself that was far different from the image in my head: the one in which I was a poor dirty black African who stank, who was of lesser intelligence and therefore had to have white people oversee me. The Image that was drummed into my head of a me that was clumsy, ineloquent, inherently stupid and backward. That depiction of me as “lucky” to have been saved, fortunate to be in an all white school instead of a group B school eating weevil- infested beans and sadza everyday. Things fall apart stirred a deep ancient memory in me, and kept stirring the more I read, it rattled at the scales before my eyes until they started to fall off gradually in bits and pieces, so that I could truly see what had happened to me, to us, to the continent of Africa. Where I had been led to believe that Africans were very lucky that white people came, I began to see that tragic effects of colonization. Where I was told there was ugliness and “paganism” in our faces names and traditions, I began to see beauty, wealth depth and true spirituality. Where I had heard the word inept over and over again I began to hear the words, intellectual, scientist, writer, doctor, lawyer….human being.

Things Fall Apart was my Bible. I read it and gently, lovingly tenderly I was born again. Things Fall Apart marked the beginning of my re education, my coming of age, my awakening. I began to dig and to search for other such books. I was thirsty for more images of myself as fully human, fully alive, and therefore full entitled to exist and to live just like other human beings.

Thank you for giving me Okwonkwo, who taught me that to die with dignity is better than to live in shame and humiliation. Thank you for his indomitable spirit, because though I did not know it at 14, I would need this same spirit later on in life. Thank you for Nwoye, who taught me that artistry, a gentle spirit and distaste for blood- letting are not signs of weakness. Thank you for the egwugwu, who reminded me that there is a continuum that begins before birth and carries on after death, and that death is but just another milestone on that continuum. This gave me courage to venture to places and spaces I would not have otherwise dared to even think about. The ancestors were with me, I lived to tell the tale.

Thank you for clothing mother Africa in garments befitting her stature, garments woven from the most beautiful and lyrical words. Thank you for lifting her up along with her children and emboldening all of us to tell our myriad stories and to reclaim ourselves. Thank you for those garments that restored her dignity and enabled her to stand among other mother nations, owning her faults and flaunting her iridescent beauty.

Daalu, Nna, Thank you for it all. RIP.

Minus the morning- Jennifer Armstrong. A Book Review

“My story starts in the womb of innocence- a cozy and comfortable womb, as every womb is, and ought to be.”

Thus begins an intriguing and at times heartbreaking account of a childhood that is in so many ways like any other childhood, but that is in as many ways unique. Jennifer Armstrong’s account of coming into consciousness during the early years after the Unilateral Declaration of Independence by Ian Smith, the then prime minister of Rhodesia in 1965, is a personal tale of living and existing with a status quo which she played no part in shaping and against which she was powerless. The adults were powerless, however what makes this story so compelling is the utter powerlessness of the child. It is the powerlessness of the adults in the story, particularly her father, which she captures with amazing prowess, yet using simple, child-like language. She is then able to demonstrate how this sense of impotence and loss of control and adherence to Christian ideology, which he dared not question, created a war within him, a raging minstrel which spewed its heat over her, the female child who was different because she was curious and dared to question. The young Jennifer turns inward, becoming quiet and as still as possible in order to avoid the unpredictable, explosive outbursts of anger from her father. However, it seems at times as though her very existence is an affront to his authority and a source of great irritation.

Armstrong’s discussion of the war of liberation of Zimbabwe from colonial rule provides the context to the complex emotions and the visceral fear that adults experienced and how these in turn impacted on her psyche. She chronicles events in a circuitous manner much like the memory, which does not always recall events and experiences in a linear fashion. One might call it an emotional geography, in which nature, events and subjects are all contexts for emotional expression. Yet one is truck by the richness of her descriptions of Nature, which she calls the “umbilical cord” to which she was attached.

Amstrong’s family eventually emigrates to Australia after her father resigns his job as a lecturer at one of Harare’s tertiary educational institutions. Life in the new country is described in emotional terms and the teenager Jennifer wrestles with the loss of Nature as her primal source of energy and happiness, paternal unpredictability and issues of sexism and patriarchy, which she meets head on with a defiance and determination that brings her to a point of personal emancipation.

Armstrong’s voice is very consistent but at times petulant; a child’s voice that is focused totally and exclusively on herself, with events and circumstances always being relative to herself. This is the case throughout the entire narrative, which gives it a cohesiveness, which its esoteric style might otherwise have threatened.  The esoteric quality is what makes the story such a delight to delve into. It demands that the reader delve in with an open mind as well with as an open heart. It compels the reader to think deeply, all the while enjoying a gently cruising pace, giving pause for reflection on one’s own inner child and the innocence, which gives the young Jennifer the gift of exacting immense pleasure and joy from the simplest of things like jumping into a cool swimming pool on a hot afternoon.

This is a story told in a unique way. It is solid.   What makes it a gem is the author’s audacity to tell of her experiences in a way that she wanted to, in a voice with which she is completely comfortable. By taking a risk with experimental form, Armstrong has demonstrated what a memoir ought to be - a means of recollection, told in a manner in with which she is at home. This in turn enables her readers to “feel at home” in her narrative.

Excellent read Jennifer! I am hoping that there is more where this came from!

Barbara Mhangami-Ruwende