adminnon-existent.
This is a pioneering text for a novel written in vernacular tackling the global problem of climate change and global warming from a local perspective.
Although there is some research-based and academic writings on the subject, in the narrative form, Gono introduces a different captivating feel of actual stories told in the local voice, from local everyday experiences.
The book examines the widespread environmental murders committed by humanity for profit, and in some instances, which are many, out of ignorance.
It introduces the reader in a simple manner to the common destructive problem, which most Zimbabweans encounter seasonally, every year that of veld fires.
From here, everything is then amplified into the proper context of climate change, although it scratches more on impacts than root causes.
Gono tells his story through the use of multiple key characters each representing a specific scenario in the vicious climate change cycle. The setting is somewhere in rural Masvingo, a frontline province for climate change impacts.
A fiery veld fire started by someone rages uncontrollably reducing huge parts of the Manunure and Mushawasha villages to ashes.
Everyone dodges responsibility to avert the prospects of paying huge fines to the local chief. In his heart, a village man to the core, Zakiyo feels guilty but puts on a brave face.
Zakiyo is careless and ignorant. He is a ruffian, drinks badly, abuses his wife and doesn’t care. Now, hunger in the home and a terrible appetite for booze makes him do crazy things.
Zakiyo starts a fire to expose and aide his hunt for bush mice, a real delicacy among the Shona people. Few mice were trapped and caught, but the fire destroyed homes, vegetation and wildlife. The inquiry at Chief Shumba’s homestead failed to pin him down or anyone else for starting the fire. Zakiyo is a free man and happy.
His fiery exploits needed improvement. He started a massive tree-cutting operation that attracted interest from lands far off. He pockets huge profits.
At the growth point, he became the darling of many, buying beer effortlessly and overnight, Zakiyo had become more popular than beer itself. After some time of happy drinking moments, two police detectives from Masvingo stopped the circus, and after a court trial, Zakiyo is jailed for three years. The wife runs away.
VaMamhere, an old man in the village, becomes a happy man after being a recipient of long-awaited rains but also becomes a cruel victim of the attendant catastrophes.
The old man and his wife lose their kitchen and their food silo is flattened out, all reserves are washed away. The rains were too heavy. Worse destruction occurs in other surrounding villages. Sainos, Mamhere’s son studying overseas, introduces a necessary foreign voice in the story.
In a letter, Sainos tells his parents the problem of changing climatic conditions was not unique to Masvingo. It was widespread, destabilising livelihoods even in Europe, which many believe is heaven on earth and problem-free.
Sainos had come face to face with rising sea levels and the ash cloud from volcanic eruptions, which caused panic and massive losses for air travellers and airlines two years ago.
Ruramai and Hezekia, two lovebirds studying nursing and teaching respectively at different colleges in Masvingo, are the new hope for the future. Shocked by the frequency and extremity of climate and weather events, the social and environmental damage and overwhelming ignorance, the couple gathers plans to start a community-based organisation that promotes climate education, adaptation and mitigation.
The author presents Ruramai and Hezekia as the future, the nucleas on which any climate response action should be built.
With the grace of God, the two eventually marry, bear a child christened Pepukai, and their organisation is called “Kunze Kwasunama”.
The book also highlights the conflicts that exist between traditional practice and modern science. Today, calls are for a complete change in individual and societal behaviours and attitudes.
But that change is fiercely resisted. Should it come, it would be at a heavy price. And that price is already being paid, painfully.
On Page 7, an old man rebukes an environmental officer, a woman, for wearing trousers – a taboo in some quarters saying this was contributing to droughts.
The book collates a variety of climate change impacts.
The heavy rains, which pounded the Machitenda village resulted in floods, as riverbanks and dam walls crumbled.
While villagers had eagerly waited for the rains, now already late, the end results were less desirable: homes were destroyed and diseases flourished.
On the whole, “Pepukai Kunze Kwasunama” is a soft read written with clarity and purpose. Its style, size (just 30 pages), even larger font size were deliberately designed to make the book an easy quick read, captivating and simple to understand.
God is faithful.
Online Reporter