Tsitsi Nomsa Ngwenya’s
novel, A Portrait of Emlanjeni, is set
to be published by the UK based Carnelian Heart Publishing this March of 2023.
It will definitely bring us to the literature and environment subject. From a
human perspective, it is very easy to declare that this is a story about the
rise and fall and rise of one Zanele, the daughter of Hadebe of Matobo,
Zimbabwe.
The first time that I read
the opening phase of this intriguing novel, I kept on saying to myself, but where
are the people, where are the people? As in Mungoshi's Waiting for the Rain and Vera's The Stone Virgins, you may only fully appreciate the people if you
are ready to feel the pulse of the landscape from which they erupt.
In what many will be able to
call an environmental novel, Emlanjeni in Matobo, is integral to the story and it becomes one of the major and very
active characters. It is an art
that uses a known geographical area thoroughly, describing and
dwelling on its natural features elaborately in order to show that the life, social relations,
customs, language, dialect or other aspects of the culture of an area and its
people, can indeed become overridden by what the environment is becoming.
“To reach Emlanjeni, one has to plan a three-hour drive from Ematojeni, about twenty kilometers South of Bulawayo. Ematojeni Hills of the famous Njelele Shrine and Matopos National Park, a national heritage site, lies on the village’s north. You drive on a strip road, curving, turning and meandering around huge rock boulders, past the balancing rocks…” the novel begins.
You know that you are already journeying. Then you are warned, “The place is dry. One can smell its dryness. Acacia bushes dot the flat landscape which is littered with little, whitish, dusty stones. The whole surrounding area, all the way to Mwewu River, is mostly gullied and dry, giving the impression of a place being frequently cleaned by nature’s maids....”
Then
you are taken into the sky: “If one cared to imagine the aerial view of the two
rivers bordering the village, Simphathe and Marabi, with the Kwanike hillocks
on the south, the picture would be a breath-taking one, the kind you find
framed as a monument in a museum. The sandy loam, some patches of black clay on
some areas and red soils on the other, holds the ground together. Grass slowly dies of thirst after the
February-March rains only to come to back to life during the October-November
planting season…”
Then
you are told that the journey has always been bumpy, “...that is the bridge that
makes bus drivers forbid women and children from occupying the front seats. As
the bus descends, fearful passengers on their maiden trips to Bulawayo,
koNtuthuziyathunqa, let out shrieks which sometimes cause the driver to lose
control of the steering wheel…”
Eventually
the people fully pour into the story, creating a din- “Most young boys in
Emlanjeni do not take school seriously. The schools are far apart such that
pupils walk long distances. Even if some, especially girls, want to pursue
education, they fail to do so because idlers and school dropouts wait for them
on their way from school. These girls are persuaded and forced into love
affairs which lead to pregnancies and hastily planned marriages…”
You have now landed in the territory of Malayitshas who bring groceries in big tshangana
bags from South Africa and Botswana, blankets and other items given to them to
take home. It is said that some mothers,
upon receiving these parcels, forget their disappointment. Those whose
daughters send a malayitsha frequently, are seen wearing beautiful izishweshwe dresses, berets and sneakers
to village parties and other communal meetings.
It
is also indicated that everyone cycles in Emlanjeni and women even as old as
seventy cycle to church, miles away. They are serious about attending these
church services where they give God the love they could have been giving to
their absent children and spouses! At the local St Joseph’s Secondary School,
bicycles can be seen balancing on each other, piled on trees within the school
premises. Younger women cycle to clinics with babies strapped on their backs.
Some experienced women even cycle balancing beer calabashes to village parties.
Then
suddenly we come to the eye of the storm when Zanele, the apple of Emlanjeni’s
eye, and one of the greatest scholars in the region, realises that a “wrong”
person has made her pregnant somewhere in the thorny bushes! She decides that
this has to be her secret because if the world knows then her very own world
will fall apart.
Zanele
has a very challenging predicament. The man who makes her pregnant is a known
layabout- a long time friend of hers who dropped out of school because he has
nobody to pay his fees. Sipho is his name and he herds cattle, reading books
and writing brilliantly desperate poetry in the arid bush.
During
some moments, Zanele thinks that she loves Sipho. But in some, she tends to
think that she actually pities him and that this cannot be the basis for a good
marriage. Besides, Zanele wants to remain in school like her niece, Nonceba. But…
Zanele is already pregnant! How will she go back to boarding school?
Sipho
wants her to stop going to school. Sipho does not want to see any man close to Zanele.
His knife is already sharpened and ready. He follows her everywhere, listening
into her conversations with people from behind the scanty bushes. He is becoming an animal, making appointments
with Zanele in the bush so that he beds her with a curious sense of vengeance.
Zanele is both attracted to and repulsed by him…There is a morbid attraction
between them and that thing runs across this story. You read on with a sense of
trepidation as the least expected happens…Discordant lovers in their beloved
dry land.
Meanwhile
the dry countryside goes on, rendering this book a festival of a variety of
cultural materials. This novel is a bewitching manual on how to make beer for
the rain making ceremony. You read about the ijumo ceremony: “This is a cleansing custom which is
performed before the rain dance ritual they are brewing beer for. All village
men, including boys, wake up early to clean the forests of dead animal
carcasses and bones, bringing down disused birds’ nests, removing debris thrown
on the riverbanks and destroying abandoned homesteads.”
This book teaches you; how to prepare isitshwala with impala biltong in
marula-nut sauce, how to prepare isitshwala senyawuthi, a type of thick
porridge cooked with finger millet,
served with amasi for supper, how to use
the umsuzwane herbs to heal deep
wounds, how to draw beautiful portraits on walls of huts using white ash, how girls play the inkente game and you also read about the
character of the now defunct Nholowemizana
ritual, which was about a bride having to have sexual intercourse with her
father-in-law… and many other items.
This
book teems with characters; various and unpredictable. There is Mamoyo who “would
darn, darn and darn, her hands moving softly, slowly and carefully.” There is Sikhwehle
Jiyane, a fully grown man and “had things been alright with his mind, he would
have made a wonderful husband and father. What
baffled a lot of people was that most of the time his faculties seemed quite
alert. This made some people think that he was alright after all, while others
were not too sure of that. He was one of those people the villagers called ‘umuntu
kaMlimu,’ meaning God’s person.” There is Sibanda who rapes his daughter in
front of his wife. There is also Tholakele Mpunzi, an extremely beautiful woman
in her late twenties who is married to an old man and men try every trick in
the book to woo her.
A Portrait of Emlanjeni tries to take a panoramic picture of this place from the unique
landscape, the minds of the people, their rich culture and the subsequent
challenges that they face in the changing times in Southern Zimbabwe. It is a
story told through a woman’s gaze, very sensitive on how women experience a
landscape made by nature and men.
Tsitsi
Nomsa Ngwenya grew up in Matobo in Matabeleland South, Zimbabwe. She was first
published by University of South Africa Journal, Imbizo, in 2014. In 2016,
Radiant Publishing House published her first novel, Izinyawo Zayizolo written
in her mother tongue, IsiNdebele. The novel was received with much critical
acclaim in the academia. In 2017, Royal Publishing House published her
collection of short stories titled, The Fifty Rand Note.
+previewed by Memory Chirere, Harare.
