MUCHURI'S BOOK INSPIRES CHILDREN

Winzim Online

 

Tinashe Muchuri reading at the Book Cafe some years ago

 

Tinashe Muchuri’s Auntie Mazvita (2021, Essential Books Publishing Company), a children’s book shortlisted for the NAMA award last year, offers children the cultural wisdom necessary to uproot moral poverty reeking in modern day society, African society in particular.

Before ICT somehow chopped away the role of the traditional aunt, an adviser and storyteller, the children were protected and the home was their first school. Parents, aunts and uncles, were the basic teachers who, through storytelling, they would mentor a child to understand the spirit of Ubuntu.

Nowadays, the children hardly sit around the fire to listen to grandma or auntie who usually has lots of exciting stories and games. Actually, there are no aunts to make them laugh as tsuro makes a fool of gudo, to make them ask questions to understand the moral lesson.

Books like Auntie Mazvita will always be important in capturing the kids young so that they grow up understanding life and the Ubuntu spirit. 

Auntie Mazvita is not an action or fictional narration but a real-life inspirational story told by the storyteller Auntie Mazvita herself. She tells the story of her life and her role in the village. She reminds the children and adults alike of how storytellers were highly regarded because of their gift of knowledge.

‘I was taught that a storyteller builds the future. It is through the stories told to children that a strong foundation is laid. Without proper stories, the future is dull,” she says in the book.

The colour illustrations add some liveliness.

Auntie Mazvita is at ease with the inquisitive boys and girls; she shares with them her knowledge through song and dance. Yet she does not forget the realities of social evils haunting the children; such evil as child abuse, hence she protects the kids by educating them.

Although she is wheel-chair bound because of polio, she is an achiever, a Paralympic champion. After reading this book, children will love to associate with fellow pupils or friends who live with disability. They will understand that disability is not witchcraft – or some superstitious punishment, but it is usually a medical condition or a result of accident.  

Children are good observers but they are happy when they find someone to ask questions about what they see. For example, in Muchuri’s book, it’s clear the children have seen disabled people always begging in the streets and wonder why Auntie Mazvita is as independent as any other ‘abled’ person.

‘I am not a charity case or a special one. I work for myself. Telling stories is a career. I am working,” she tells the children. Her independence inspires the children to aim higher despite challenges life may present.

As a counsellor, she has earned the confidence of villagers who are having marital problems. It means she is not there for the kids only, but for the whole village.

In this little but sagacious book, Tinashe Muchuri proves that we cannot do without the storyteller. Muchuri is an award-winning journalist, writer, poet, translator, and actor. He is the author of the Shona novel Chibarabada (2015, Bhabhu Books)

 

 

***