Flying on the Wings of My Soul
The Case of Village Libraries in Zimbabwe
I would like to share with you that I felt pleasantly surprised and honoured when I was invited to contribute to an own going recognition that books are inseparably linked to the struggle for the liberation of human person. I am grateful to Zimunya who contacted me first. Above all I am thankful to Dr Xavier who despite my arrogance communications created space for me to participate in the discussions of this day. I do believe that there is a correlation between one’s passion, and commitment to the things we do in life. Books form a pillar of my life such that the only prison I could ever imagine is a place without books.
The title of my presentation is a phrase borrowed from Nelson Mandela’s latest publication. Conversations with Myself he suggests that when one connects to the calling even solitude and pain inspires the soul to persevere towards the dream. In this presentation I will not be discussing ‘The State of Public libraries in Zimbabwe’ as noted in the programme. The subject is not my passion. I choose to share my journey, to the village libraries that are constructed by mud, painted by the colourful soils dug from the river banks and anthills. I explore my pleasant surprises when I discovered that rural people define their lack of books as one of the multiple poverties that they live with. Rural women and men passionately look after the books not only as survival instruments, but also passage to better future for their children. I conclude my discussion by highlighting possible strategies to assist the majority of the marginalize access and use information through taking more books to the village libraries.
My Journey to the village libraries
My friend Kathy and I were on our way from Washington to Zimbabwe. We were seated in Doris Lessing’s flat in London. The discussion was about what is happening in the rural areas of Zimbabwe. One of the suggestions that I brought up was making learning friendly by providing books. “One of the greatest moments in my childhood was when unwrapping a parcel of books sent all the way from ‘Persia’ now Iran. “ She said. That was it for me. A parcel of books would make a difference for rural schools. But, we had to do it right, the legal registrations, political allocation of the village libraries making sure that they are not in one tribal region despite the need. The list was endless. At some stage even the name was not accepted in other circles. ‘Africa Book Development—are you claiming to be an umbrella of all the book development programmes in Africa?” I was once confronted.
When Mohammed Yunus approached the banks to lend money to the village women we all know that the cynicism was beyond comprehension. The stories of stereotyping rural people permeate through socio – economic and political realms. The success of the Grameen Bank is beyond measure. Women involved have crossed the poverty bridge, to build their own homes, and afford university education for their children. The bank is now giving loans to street beggars. We were met with the same cynicism when we discussed the possibility of libraries on farms, mines and remote rural areas of Zimbabwe. “Where do rural people get time to read?” Those women are too busy to have time to go to the library and look for books stop dreaming...” Even if you wanted to put books in the villages who will look after those books? There are not qualified librarians...before you know some of those books will be used to make fire or smoking cigarettes, if not toilet paper. “The lessons from Yunus’ success work in Bangladesh had inspired me to trust that the poor people are not stupid. I was born and raised among the poor in a village. The concerns that people raised were substantial, reading Dangarembga’s ‘Nervous Condition’ it is true that rural women are overwhelmed. However the main character Tambu, demonstrated the indomitable spirit of hope that keeps rural women struggling against the odds to achieve the impossible. When I looked in the mirror then I did not see a stupid person. I saw a girl who was yearning to ride on the wings of her dreams from horizon to horizon carried by the spirit of hope searching for meaning in life.
One of the most memorable experiences of my life was when I was in the third year of primary schooling. My favourite book was Robin Hood. My class had 45 minutes to read the book in a week. At night I would dream Robin Hood bringing loads of books to our school only to wake up to the reality of waiting until our class turn. I swore then that when I grow up I would buy myself books. In my house the first sight you catch are books. I pity my children who were forced to make up for my hunger of books. At the ages of two or three I took them around to the children’s section of the bookshops. My son earned a nickname ‘four fish’ at three because he was reading this book that had a picture of four fish. He would pick the book and shout ‘Four Fish!!’. Even if books are not real furniture, I believe that they furnish our intellect the most. I witnessed the same longing among rural men and women when they have to wait for the day they are not working in the field to go the library. For these people books are not a luxury they are vehicles for survival. “When our cows get sick we get sick too. That is why the library is important. We get books that help us keep our cows health.
When we sell the cows we send our children to school. When the children successfully complete school the achievement is celebrated by the whole clan. ” Books on ‘how to’ became most popular among rural communities. Thanks to Professor Gordon Chavhunduka who worked with us and translated his book into local languages that assisted cattle farmers in Simuchembu and Umzingwane in the Midlands of Matabeleland Provinces of Zimbabwe respectively.
Our first meeting at a village library was in Gokwe North Chief Smuchembu area. The benches were pieces of dry logs, large bricks and stones arranged in rows under a tree.
During the rainy season the librarian used the beer hall. The catalogue was a butcher’s paper nailed to a tree near the shops. The librarian arrived first carrying a black tin box packed with books. Villagers trickled in one after another their eyes fixed on the butcher’s paper to see which book they would take next. We witnessed lively discussion in small groups about which book was most useful to help them understand and redress crop and livestock diseases. “Why do you not keep these books in school?” asked a donor representative who had travelled with us. “School heads do not believe that books are for people that are out of school. It would be increasingly difficult for adults to go into the school to borrow books. We need our own library...” responded one of the women.
There are people whose way of life speaks to me profoundly one such person is Maya Angelau. In one of her publications, she wrote, “A bird does not only sing, it sings because it has a song to sing.” Singing is rooted in the African culture. We sing and dance when we celebrate life. We sing when we mourn the loss of loved ones. We sing to mark the beginning and end of every significant event in our lives. The African rural people do not only sing, but they have dreams, their dream produces the song and the dance that only those who have sang the same song and danced the same dance would understand. To discuss books for Africa we need to ask six basic questions, how? What? Where? Why? When? Who? The encouragement is to use these six questions to ask about things we do not understand, to search for answers to problems, to discover how things work and why things are the way they are. Oral communication has its place in our history. With modernity we also know that oratory is not sustainable. The stories get buried with the orator, while the written word transcends generations. Thanks to invention of paper and ink books are unquestionably a central part of our lives.
By 2003 Africa Book Development Organisation was a fully fledged organization supplying books to more than 100 libraries across the country mostly in the remote rural areas, commercial farms and on mines. Communities had organized themselves into study circles responding to the curiosity about their poverties roused by the books they read.
Books for Living
In as much as we exercise and eat health food to nurture our physical wellbeing, we equally need the exercise and good information to take care of our intellectual wellness. We can nurture our brain through reading books. Books are not a privilege for the elites who can afford to buy them, but rather a fundamental human need that all citizens should have unconditional access to. My suggestion here is that access to books is a human rights issue. I am waiting for the day human rights organizations and lawyers hold governments accountable to the nations on behalf of communities that have zero access to books. Among my preferred singers is Tracy Chapman, in one of her songs she sang, ‘those who do not have live their lives in mountains of nothing, all they do is dream.’ It is the dreams that keep them going believing that the morrow might be a better day.
To comprehend the dreams of those who are book starved you need to have been born in the remote rural areas, where the wind propels dust forming dancing clouds that blow roofs off the houses and schools. In these areas the only signs you see are from national breweries telling the story that drunkards make the best people. The other signs on the dirty walls of dilapidated shops include: ‘smoking makes a man’! ‘Coca cola is great’! You need to have walked barefoot 10 kilometres to the nearest primary school or even longer for secondary school. During winter your feet froze to the extent that you only realised you had cut by flow of blood. In the rain season you would witness the horror of your school mates washed away by the flooded river. Then, you would know the river is dangerous to cross for that day, maybe a week or even more before you get back to school. Sometimes you would sit by the banks of the river, watching the flood like a hawk and praying that the water recedes in time for you to go to school. When you finally get to school there is barely enough resources to compensate for the struggles you have gone through. You share a single book with five of your classmates; that is if your school is one of the ‘good schools’. The books would be safely stored in the school head’s office accessed by the teachers. Everything would be written on the chalk board by teacher thus a rural child will have to memorise all the lessons throughout the year. This was the story of my generation. I do believe that many of you born in the rural areas identify with it. I do understand Nelson Mandela’s experience that the chains of the flesh could be wings for the soul upon which we can fly. Flying on the wings of my soul is the song in the heart of rural children as they struggle to get a sound education.
Despite the fact that since independence Zimbabwe like many other African countries emphasized free education for all, our challenge should be to investigate equity of education. I never understood my grandmother when she used to say that although there is water in the calabash remember that the fox cannot drink that water. When my niece graduated he wrote to me a very sad note, “Aunt when we enroll for these courses we are excited, but upon graduation we come to a new level of awakening we realize that the degrees we have are not marketable.” When I asked my niece why he thinks he should go to market after graduation he told me that his degree can only be useful if he got employment. Mirroring on my favourite singer Tracy Chapman who also sang that she realised that she was going to work for somebody to her grave, if university graduates find it impossible to transcend barriers of unemployment what fate awaits the young none graduates who live in the remote rural areas?
Thanks to Dr. Lawton Hikwa who seconded interns from National University of Science & Technology (NUST) to work with us. Our first training session with village librarians was in 1997 in chief Simchembu area at a primary school. I will always live to remember an illustration by one of the participants. His drawing was a giant cabbage, which he explained to us that he was seeing a clear picture of a thriving garden in the wetland that separated two villages. He wanted to be participating in the library project because he would get information to realize his dream. By 2008 ‘Kupedza nzara’ ‘uprooting hunger’ was a thriving agricultural project that produced vegetables and maize providing staple food for the villagers and the neighbouring communities. Steven Covey suggests that people need to find their ‘voices’ the ‘voice’ represents meaning, calling or purpose of one’s life. Through the village library the members of Kupedza Nzara project found their voices and launched a programme that continues to thrive today.
In some of the communities the libraries are based in schools. The majority of beneficiaries in school libraries are students and teachers. In 2010 Africa Book Development Organisation supplied 60 rural libraries in 7 districts, the books reached out to 8,400 school pupils and adults.
I recall an experience when I was working in The Ministry of Community Development in the early nineties. We went to a school in Tsholotsho. My son who was in grade three then could use a student dictionary. At this secondary school, pupils in Form 3 were struggling to use the same dictionary. When we donated the first kit containing 20 books 1998, the donation inspired The Parents and Teachers’ Association to explore ways of growing the library. The school worked with the parents to construct a library. Dinyane Secondary School in Tsholotsho and Whitewater Secondary School in Matabeleland Provinces have reputable rural libraries in the south of Zimbabwe. Paulo Freire could not have been more right that when people read their reality they write their own history new levels of awareness is evoked consequently they take to liberate themselves. The history of these schools and the communities around continues to be rewritten through study circles both in schools and in the villages. When we visited some of the schools parents took turns to cover and mend the books for their children. Study circles replaced competition in schools where they were introduced. As you might all remember that in school we hid work from one another because we wanted to be the best.
The study circles in schools and in the community promoted what one of the African legendary leaders Mwalimu Julius Nyerere referred to as ‘convivial society’. This is a society in which shared opportunities allow all its members to maximise their potential. In the village libraries of Chivi, while women secured income to send their children to school, in 2008 the same study circle produced 12 food by-products from sweet potatoes.
After 13 years Africa Book Development Organization (ABDO) has established 194 libraries and 166 study circles in 7 districts. I do believe that if Zimbabwe could afford a library in each of its 600 wards, we will have a society whose HOPE is ALIVE that HOPE defined by president Obama as, ‘that thing inside of us that insists despite all the evidence to the contrary that there is something greater inside of us.’ We witnessed young people going back to school, completing education through study circles and trained to become professionals as teachers, nurses because the village libraries gave them a second chance to study. How can we sit here and discuss taking books to the people as if we have a choice? Have we not learned that asking village people to live a life without books is asking them to stop living? Despite being in the periphery, books are the only means by which rural people connect with the rest of the world, the living, and the dead, beyond the boundaries of race, religion without fear that they would explode on their faces.
School children appreciating book donations to their school library by ABDO
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