Monday, November 30, 2009
Sins of our fathers
There are several customs and traditions that have been perpetrating male chauvinism, spreading HIV/AIDS and even degrading the status of women in the society. One exciting piece of fiction, Sins of our fathers by Chikumbutso Ndaferankhande takes an intrinsic look into such traditions and their impact on the girl child.
Sins of our fathers is a short story centering at the life of a fourteen-year old Tania who was married off to Gwamu – an old man and a maize trader – to offset maize loan that her parents secured from Gwamu seven years past. Tania had to endure the most excruciating inhuman conditions in the house of Gwamu until the moment she hit back Gwamu with Nthiko and he fainted. Tania fled away until she fainted on the banks of a river and was being prosecuted for causing gravious bodily harm.
Remarkable traits of creative writing skills are showcased in the story through the way in which the author explores the social customs and beliefs. The traditional belief that investing in the education of a girl child was a waste of resources is evident through the voice of Tania’s father: “Paying for a girl’s secondary education is a waste, something I can’t be foolish to do. For whose benefit? If anything it will be her husband who will enjoy the effort. Provided she knows how to read and write, that’s enough.”
Going through the story one learns that some traditions are perpetrated by poverty. The root cause of the trading off of Tania was that the family had had bad harvest, ADMARC had had no grain reserves, the government was reported to have sold the previous harvest to neighboring countries and people were starving to death. The only people to look to were the likes of Gwamu who were importing maize for sale. When Tania’s parent got the maize on credit they were optimistic that they would later sell cattle to offset the debt. Unfortunately, foot and mouth disease wiped away the cattle. The family had one choice, as Tania’s mother explains to her: “We marry you off to offset the debt. We cannot repay in any other way than this.”
Ndaferankhande goes on to artistically portray several traditional beliefs that wreck havoc in the lives of the girl-child. This is portrayed in Tania’s reflections: while in standard four, her classmate, Mwache who was only 12 was given off to a man three times her age as dowry. Then there was Lucia who had been offered to a widower as a consolation following her sister’s death, a tradition so called kupyanikisya or chimetamasisi. Lucia eventually run away from the village and turned into prostitution to make ends meet.
An exciting element worthy noting in the story is that it tests the application of the law. Was Tania to be jailed for avenging her wrath on a man who had turned her into a punch bag every night? Was the law to only look at her wounding her forced husband regardless of circumstances surrounding the causative factors? Of course, in the end the magistrate ruled that Tania had to be free and taken off from Gwamu and that her parents had to ensure that she further her education.
Certainly, the flow of language and the expressions given in the story will leave you with no seeds of doubt as to why the story scooped the first prize in the 2008 First Merchant Bank/Malawi Writers Union Literary Awards. It is an excellent piece of literature that adds value to the element of research in creative writing. Sins of our fathers is published in an anthology entitled the Bachelor of Chikanda and other stories.
Sins of our fathers is a short story centering at the life of a fourteen-year old Tania who was married off to Gwamu – an old man and a maize trader – to offset maize loan that her parents secured from Gwamu seven years past. Tania had to endure the most excruciating inhuman conditions in the house of Gwamu until the moment she hit back Gwamu with Nthiko and he fainted. Tania fled away until she fainted on the banks of a river and was being prosecuted for causing gravious bodily harm.
Remarkable traits of creative writing skills are showcased in the story through the way in which the author explores the social customs and beliefs. The traditional belief that investing in the education of a girl child was a waste of resources is evident through the voice of Tania’s father: “Paying for a girl’s secondary education is a waste, something I can’t be foolish to do. For whose benefit? If anything it will be her husband who will enjoy the effort. Provided she knows how to read and write, that’s enough.”
Going through the story one learns that some traditions are perpetrated by poverty. The root cause of the trading off of Tania was that the family had had bad harvest, ADMARC had had no grain reserves, the government was reported to have sold the previous harvest to neighboring countries and people were starving to death. The only people to look to were the likes of Gwamu who were importing maize for sale. When Tania’s parent got the maize on credit they were optimistic that they would later sell cattle to offset the debt. Unfortunately, foot and mouth disease wiped away the cattle. The family had one choice, as Tania’s mother explains to her: “We marry you off to offset the debt. We cannot repay in any other way than this.”
Ndaferankhande goes on to artistically portray several traditional beliefs that wreck havoc in the lives of the girl-child. This is portrayed in Tania’s reflections: while in standard four, her classmate, Mwache who was only 12 was given off to a man three times her age as dowry. Then there was Lucia who had been offered to a widower as a consolation following her sister’s death, a tradition so called kupyanikisya or chimetamasisi. Lucia eventually run away from the village and turned into prostitution to make ends meet.
An exciting element worthy noting in the story is that it tests the application of the law. Was Tania to be jailed for avenging her wrath on a man who had turned her into a punch bag every night? Was the law to only look at her wounding her forced husband regardless of circumstances surrounding the causative factors? Of course, in the end the magistrate ruled that Tania had to be free and taken off from Gwamu and that her parents had to ensure that she further her education.
Certainly, the flow of language and the expressions given in the story will leave you with no seeds of doubt as to why the story scooped the first prize in the 2008 First Merchant Bank/Malawi Writers Union Literary Awards. It is an excellent piece of literature that adds value to the element of research in creative writing. Sins of our fathers is published in an anthology entitled the Bachelor of Chikanda and other stories.
