African Laughter - Doris May Lessing [126]
Early next morning, when the waiter brings the tea, biscuits, it is raining. I sit up in bed surrounded by the Team’s books and look through the second one, called Building Wealth in our Villages: An Introduction to Rural Enterprises.
All cartoons. An attractive young woman says: Zimbabwe’s economy is one of the most heavily dependent on external capital in black Africa. About seventy per cent of the capital is controlled by foreigners, mainly by one hundred and thirty British companies and forty-three South African companies. Foreigners own sixty per cent of Zimbabwe’s industries, ninety per cent of the mines, and nineteen per cent of the farms. Between 1980 and 1983 profits sent outside Zimbabwe amounted to at least 3,330 million dollars.
A young woman exhorts: So it will be a slow and difficult process to change the economy in a way that reduces the gap between the villages and the urban modern sector, and reduces Zimbabwe’s dependence on foreign capital and technology. Another young woman: As village people we should be very actively involved, well informed and well organized for this process, as it is a task the government cannot carry out alone. And for this we need a basic knowledge of Zimbabwe’s economy.
What is economics? One reply is spoken by a middle-aged village woman, another by a middle-aged man.
What is production? Production is the act of transforming the things that come from Nature into usable goods. In order to produce we need the following: Natural Resources, Labour, Capital.
When Chris Hodzi makes these cartoons, he uses people he has seen, watched, listened to, at the meetings he sits through, usually unobserved, sketching. It occurs to me that the books will be a record of the types and kinds of people of this time, everywhere in Zimbabwe, what they wore, how they looked, stood, talked.
No one planned it: but usually the most valuable things just happen.
1. What is the most important product in your village?
2. Describe the natural resources that went into its production: labour, capital.
3. Do you have any difficulties in getting the natural resources, labour, or capital you need for producing your main village products? If so, describe your difficulties and think of the ways in which you might begin dealing with these problems.
The books will be in every village in Zimbabwe. The first one is already in every village. Even where schools are bad these books, if they are read, will be as good as an education in citizenship. That wasn’t planned either.
By eight we were in an office for the delayed meeting. It was conducted in Ndebele: both Cathie and Talent speak it. The women come from the poorest areas that have suffered years of drought. They all know about the women’s book, and there is the sense of an important occasion, of hope.
Two memorable moments, both from the past. One when an older woman put the conservative view–there is always one who does, and always the younger women listen in a way that says part of them has to agree. ‘Not all the old ways were bad. We must keep what is valuable in our traditions.’
And the other, when an old woman rebuked a girl who said the law should protect women against rape. Women, she said, have forgotten how to protect themselves. How about that old technique: a girl in a forest is being chased by a man. She lifts her skirts as she runs, shows everything, the man gets weaker and weaker, cannot run, cannot catch her…Everybody laughs, then they remember Chris is there, the only man present. He laughs too, saving the situation.
The meeting ends in laughter and in last minute exhortations from the Team: Matabeleland South is famous for music, remember we need songs and poems for the book. Make up poems and songs if you like.
Then down the stairs we go and into a Toyota Landcruiser supplied by a local office: the work of the Team is valued here. This vehicle is a development of a landrover, larger, more comfortable, high off the earth. You float in it. It can carry a lot of people, and today this is useful because