African Women as portrayed in "Ancestor Stones"

As I started thinking about the topic of this blog being about African women and how they are portrayed in Ancestor Stones, there was a certain part of the book that caught my attention again, like the last post, and made me think more about African women and what they deal with.

Here is what stood out to me this time: Mariama is talking about her mother's illness and the effect it had on her family. She makes this comment:

"When a person dies our people cry and sing. The drums sound. The house is home to many visitors. When my mother went away there was silence. My father's house was still. The silence slid down the mud walls. Great drops stretching slowly down the eaves, smothering the thoughts that hung in the air. I clotted every crevice. It rose in the back of my throat when I tried to ask about my mother, and threatened to make me retch. It filled the house until we could no longer open our mouths for fear of drowning in it."

This quotation really made me consider for the first time how African women felt. I felt that Mariama felt like she wasn't worthy to talk about her mother, not only because she was a child, but also because she was a female. The "father's house" really made me think this. I also think that she wasn't allowed to talk about this because her mother's illness was rare and considered as embarrasing.

The descriptive language in this paragraph also caught my eye. The description is rare and unique and helped me to understand the situation. I could almost see the scene and feel the frustration of wanting to talk about a hard situation and not being able to.

It is interesting, too, to think about the difference between the relationships of the daughters to their fathers and their mothers. Here, Mariama is definitely frustrated with her father and I think that she has the right to be. It is interesting to look at her relationship to her mother as well because she held great respect for her even in this time of her illness and especially when others lost respect for her mother.

Dissecting a line from Ancestor Stones

So far I really like Ancestor Stones by Aminatta Forna. I like the different perspectives that each chapter are written from and I'm excited to get to know how the characters fit together and what their story will be.

One quote that has kept me thinking is this one from page 21. Asana is describing the new job that her father has and their new village. At this point she is talking about the people who are beginning to arrive in the new village. She mentions the blacksmith, the carpenter, te herbalist, the coffee harvestors and growers. Then she says this and I am still wondering what the significance is:

"A big man casts a long shadow and many people build their lives in the shade."

At first I thought she was talking about the blacksmith, but then I realized that she could be talking about any of the others who joined the village. Then as I'm writing this I wonder if maybe it's her father. He is supposed to be the leader of the village and maybe she is talking about his shadow or governance over these people. This seems to make sense to me. In order for his business to grow and flourish, he needs all of the other villagers, especially the workers to harvest and plant.

I never thought I would think so much about one line in a novel, but it's good to identify these challenging lines because they can hold so much information. It just takes a little time and a little thought, and for me, the chance to write a little, because it is then that I can begin to really understand something.

Xala

Literally meaning the curse, the reader who knows this term would be much more enlightened going into reading this short novel than the reader who doesn't know.

As I began reading Xala, I was shocked at the content. From announcements in class, I knew that this novel was about polygamy, but I never would have guessed that it would have been about the impotence of a man with several wives.
When I began looking for more information on Xala for this class, the first thing that came up on a Google search is the Wikipedia page that tells about the movie of Xala. Talking to another student in the class, we decided that it would be interesting to watch because now we know the content, which we both decided is quite uncommon and would probably make an interesting film.

I decided to look at the author of Xala, Ousmane Sembène. Wikipedia says that he grew up in Senegal, learned three languages (French, Arabic, and Wolof) and served in the French army, among other things.

It was interesting for me to learn about Sembène so that I could understand more about him as an author. When I know more about an author, it helps gives validity to his work and helps me to better understand when there may be significant information in a work. For instance, in Xala, it is important for me to know about his experience with the languages of Senegal and his experience in the army for me to understand why some scenes are more important than they seem at face value. One particular scene was the one where Rama is pulled over by a police officer and she speaks to the officer in Wolof while Pathe speaks to him in French.

"Dzimba dza mabwe"

I thought it fitting to welcome you to learn a little bit about Zimbabwe before I tell you about its anticolonial struggle. The title of this blog is actually what the name Zimbabwe means which is "great house of stone" in the Shona language.

Located in the Southern part of the African continent, Zimbabwe is home to many different species of animals including elephants, lions, giraffes and zebras, and is also the where the famous Victoria Falls are located.

A quick history of Zimbabwe is necessary before I tell you about the anticolonial struggle in Zimbabwe. Originally named Zambesia, the name changed in 1895 to Rhodesia because of Cecil Rhodes' colonizing efforts there. The name then changed to the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland when the British combined the two colonies in 1953. Shortly after this due to strong African nationalism, the British dissolved the Union and it was divided into 3 separate colonies.

In 1963, the anticolonial struggle began. The Prime Minister of Rhodesia, Ian Smith, declared Rhodesia independent from Britain in a Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI). The United Kingdom (Britain) saw this declaration as an act of rebellion but didn't try to take back control.

All of this quickly led to a civil war in Rhodesia. In 1970, the white minority government led by Smith declared Rhodesia a republic while the black majority through guerilla warfare against the UDI.

In 1978, Smith finally signed an accord with three black leaders and elections followed in 1979. The United African National Council won the election and Abel Muzorewa became Prime Minister. Muzorewa changed the name from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe Rhodesia. In this new government system, whites were still in control in a power-sharing arrangement which did not reflect the majority. In 1979 the civil war finally ended with the signing of the Lancaster House Agreement.

In 1980 another election was held and the Zimbabwe African National Union won. Mugabe became the ruler and a peace accord was signed in 1987.

Since then, Zimbabwe has dealt with land issues and, most recently, an economic and food crisis.

Effect of Colonization to Education in Africa

As I read through the article, "How Europe Underdeveloped Africa" by Walter Rodney, this caught my eye:

"Among the Bemba of what was then Northern Rhodesia, children by the age of six could name fifty to sixty species of tree plants without hesitation, but they knew very little about ornamental flowers. The explanation is simply that knowledge of the trees was a necessity in an environment of ‘cut and burn’ agriculture and in a situation where numerous household needs were met by tree products. Flowers, however, were irrelevant to survival."

It was shocking to me to find out that this was reality for children in Africa. Yet at the same time, I could understand this to be true. How many of us would learn about things that we didn't need to know in a time of desperation where survival was the only aim? I know I wouldn't. However, this is also interesting because this took place before the colonization of Africa because it says that the education of the African people grew out of the environment.

It would be interesting to find out more about the effects of colonization on Africa. I need to keep reading to do that. Yet, as I did more research on the effects of colonization in Africa to education, I found three really intereesting articles that talk about the effect of colonialization even today. One is from Ghana, another from Zimbabwe, and finally, the last is from Namibia. From reading these three articles, I was shocked to find out that the effects of colonization are still affecting the countries mentioned above.

Connecting Achebe and Heart of Darkness

Do you ever read a story and the descriptions are so vivid that you can picture the scenery and the characters? These are the best stores ever...

Achebe says that the most interesting and revealing parts of Conrad's Heart of Darkness are his descriptions of people. I agree and I would add the setting. Conrad gives precise details like the ones that we discussed in class on Tuesday.

While the descriptions sometimes are confusing and it is hard to distinguish what he is talking about because of the difficult language, they are still, I think, the best part of the novella and I think it is essential to think of Heart of Darkness in this way rather than looking at it solely as a difficult text that is hard to decipher. Here is an example that I like:

"...It was paddled by black fellows. You could see from afar the white of their eyeballs glistening. They shouted, sang; their bodies streamed with persperation; that ad faces like grotesque masks - these chaps; but they had bone, muscle, a wild vitality, an intense energy of movement, that was as natural and true as the surf along their coast. They wanted no excuse for being there. They were a great comfort to look at..."

While it may be hard to sometimes understand the signinficance of what descriptions Conrad decides to include and expound upon, one thing I noticed is that his descriptions of the native Congolese are the best. I think this is essential to accomplish what I think his goal is...to expose the situation of colonization in the Congo.

Heart of Darkness

As I read through Heart of Darkness, I was amazed at the tone of the narrator. He speaks in language that seems to me to reveal the situation in the Congo at the time. The writing is many times written awkwardly, or at least it seems that way to me. It is often unclear exactly what is happening, who is present, and why it is happening.

An example of this is in the second section of the story when Marlow tells the story of what he overheard on the steamboat. As he is lying down, he hears the manager and one of his nephews talking and begins to listen in. He figures out that they are talking about Kurtz and then later about someone who supposedly was with Kurtz. He grasps on to their feelings about these two persons and he decides to keep his curiosity to himself.

I think this obscurity of language aids Conrad in portraying the darkness that is eluded to in the title. As a reader of Marlow's tales of his journey, I am brought into the situation with the infrequent dialogue and sometimes careful descriptions of the surroudings. I think it helps me take on the feelings of fear, mistrust, confusion, etc. that Marlow was feeling. And as much as I don't like this style of writing, I do think it is genius on Conrad's part for taking the reader into the story of such an awful time in the history of Africa.