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In a classic case of sheer determination, Tendai Kamba, a 44-year-old widow, returned to school after her first husband died in 1997 and she is holding her own in a class dominated by the ‘‘born frees’’ yet her hunger for academic success is still insatiable.
The Manica Post visited her at Clearwater Secondary School where she is in Form 3.
Her story reads like a fairy tale as she says she started her Grade 1 in 1979 at the height of the liberation war.
Although she was bright at school, her stay at Cecilton Primary School was blighted by being often chased away from school because she usually defaulted on paying her fees. Thus she had to go to Jersey Secondary School, an earn-and-learn Tanganda Tea Company institution where she began her Form 1 in 1986, but owing to the Renamo banditry, she had to leave school in early 1987.
She returned to her village and stayed with her parents until love knocked on her door in 1989, culminating in her marriage to her first husband. She gave birth to a baby girl in 1990. Seven years later, her husband died, leaving her with two girls to look after.
Tendai had to bear the burden of being a widow and a bread winner as well. Life was bitter, but she soldiered on until she met another man who impregnated her in 2005 although the relation did not blossom into a loving and fruitful one.
When everything else seemed gloomy, her elderly mother and two daughters urged her to go back to school.
Tendai says she returned to school as she realised that today’s world requires education if one wants to make in life and have a better life. Although her first child is working in South Africa and the second married, she realised that she needed a job to take care of her Grade 2 son and her aging mother.
Interestingly, her mother and South Africa-based daughter are paying her school fees. It is a paradox which is aptly captured in the Shona proverb “Yakakura ikayamwa mwana.”
She is a prodigious woman who is forward-looking and determined to overcome any stumbling blocks in her success path. She says some of her teachers are much younger than her, but she respects them. At times she feels awkward and out of place when the class goes for Agriculture and other subjects, with younger classmates outrunning her to collect educational material, but the other students never taunt or mock her; they understand her situation.
She is doing nine subjects. Her wish is to do well in her ‘O’ level examinations next year, notwithstanding the challenges she is facing academically. She eventually desires to enrol at a teachers’ college and train as a teacher.
With the determination of a lion, Tendai is a living example of how age is nothing but a number.
If Tendai can do it, younger girls can do it as well.
One hopes that our youngsters can pull a page from what Tendai has done and bring honour to themselves, the community and the country as a whole.
Today’s world requires educated women and men.
The school head, Mr Sigauke, noted that Tendai was a hard-working and humble student who has focus.
“Tendai is a pleasure to work with. No teacher has complained about her behaviour. Her industry and humility made her a unanimous choice to be a vice head girl. May the good Lord light her path to success always,” he said.
Online Reporter