[Ict4ruralwomeninafrica] Contribution from Hope Chigudu

[Jennifer Radloff]

Dear All,

Hope Chigudu from Zimbabwe sent this article which she wrote as a
contribution to the e-consultation.

Warm Regards,
Jenny
--------ooo----------

=91The gods must be crazy=92: paper written by Hope Chigudu for the Ford
Foundation workshop in Ethiopia, on the Role of Higher Institutions of
Learning in Creating an Information Rich Society, September, 2003

I was 20 when I went to the United States of America in search of a
better life, information, independence, and new circles to fulfill my
journey. This was a period of major personal and political
transformation. As a student, I involved myself in the black people=92s
movement at an effervescent period. I leant about racism and sexism. I
learned to work with men and women committed to educating the
community about their civil and human rights. I also learnt to write
articles for newspapers and to develop educational programmes for
radios and other community centres. I participated in the creation of
information networks with other people of color. I led a rich life; it
was difficult for me to imagine myself in my remote village back home
in Zimbabwe.

I was afraid of many things. I was afraid of the apathy that I left
behind, the poverty and above all the isolating nature of villages. I
thought about how difficult it used to be to travel from home to the
nearest clinic, I remembered smoke in our kitchen, unemployment in the
village and wondered if I could ever survive in an African village.
But home is home, it was beckoning and at the end of 2030, I returned
to Zimbabwe, my country of origin. You can imagine the surprise and
excitement when my mother saw me. 

I reach home and find that mother has aged gracefully and I am happy
with that. We embrace and she cries. I cry with her. The room is
charged with emotion. There is music, prayers, songs and dances. I
don=92t know how to react, the prodigal daughter that I am..

Our home and the entire village have changed. Trees are everywhere.
Recreation facilities for the young and the old are also available.
New development indeed and I am amazed. 

Mother suggests that I have a bath as I traveled by what are known as
chicken buses, in Zimbabwe. I am pleasantly surprised, the water is
warm and yet there is no fire- wood around, there is no smoke.  I ask
how the water was heated. Proudly, she announces that she uses pig
dung from a piggery to produce biogas, which she uses for lighting and
cooking, in place of firewood.  She explains, =91This makes cooking
bearable and healthier. Medical reports have shown that respiratory
and eye ailments mostly originate from firewood smoke. We are
utilizing biogas, which is a renewable energy resource that causes
minimal damage to the environment, compared to fossil fuels. In this
way we are addressing both deforestation and environment damage
problems. The spent slurry from the biogas plant is used as manure for
vegetable gardening. This is an organic fertilizer, which preserves
soil nutrients, as compared to artificially manufactured fertilizer.=92
I cannot believe this is my semi-literate mother almost lecturing to
me and sounding very sophisticated. She studies my confused face,
shrugs and explains that the community is working with some university
students who are attached to the village for a year and then go back
to the university. Even when they return to the university, they keep
checking on the progress of the projects. While working with the
communities, they are taken care of by whichever community they are
working with. She explains how the students have introduced 
community
radio programmes that are really educative. I listen, nod and keep
quiet. 

I am confused. When I was young, going to university meant being
divorced from the village with its primitive ways. Have universities
changed?

 Today is market day. My mother goes to the nearest shopping centre to
 
buy sugar and when she returns, she announces, authoritatively, that
because of bad weather, the opening of the village market will start
late. I ask her if she is a meteorologist but she looks at me with an
amused expression and asks if we don=92t have combuters in the USA. 
=93We
have combuters (there is no shona word for computer) at the growth
centre that give us information. We go there every morning to get
information on the weather, the market days and the prices, sources of
cheap commodities and new treatments for common ailments.=92  My 
mouth
is open in amazement and remains open for a long time. The 
combutors=92
are programmed in shona, the local language. How can this be? I am
really shocked.  Am I in my village, am I dreaming? I pinch myself
hard and feel the pain. It=92s me alright and not my ghost. . My auntie
comes to see me. I have not seen her for years. We hug and are
overcome by emotions. Once again I shed a tear. She appraises me 
and I
am uncomfortable. I look older than her and yet she is twenty years
older than me. We talk. She tells me that she has not been feeling
well, but going to the gymnasium has helped her.  I ask what the
problem is. She gives a lengthy explanation about some gynecological
problems. She is talking like a doctor. Something is wrong in this
village.  And the gymnasium thing for such an old woman, even in
America women of that age don=92t go to the gymnasium (she pronounces 
it
as jimu). I am embarrassed, I have not been to a gymnasium for years.
Apparently they use a video tape, there is no instruct but somehow
they manage.

My young sister arrives carrying a baby and a feeding bottle. She is
about to bottle feed and is stopped by my auntie, =91Don=92t! Use your own
breast milk. It provides all the nutrients the baby needs. It is there
on tap, does not need sterilised bottles and it=92s free=92. I look at
this illiterate woman and think,  =93the gods must be crazy=94. She looks
at me and realizes that I am confused. She offers an explanation; they
learnt all this from students of food and nutrition at the university.
The students are also using radios to ensure that there is a wider
outreach. =91We have always known the truth but then we needed 
educated
people to confirm it. Are they not the ones who stopped us from
breast-feeding? Now they have come back to us and de-educated us. 
They
realize that we were right, breast milk is great.=92 I nod foolishly. 

We chat, my mother, sister and auntie. They want to know about the
USA. But then the discussion turns to reproduction and sexuality. They
talk about menstruation, sexual intercourse, abortion, pregnancy,
childbirth, and vaginal discharge and go on and on. I want to sink, to
fly away, to diminish, and to go back to the USA. These were taboo
subjects when I was growing up. We never discussed sexual issues in
public let alone with parents. Parents were supposed to be asexual. My
auntie senses my discomfort, and touches me lightly on the arm. =91Don=92t
be embarrassed. Before Christianity came, we used to talk about our
bodies and were proud of them. The students attached to the health
centre are quite open and have encouraged us to be open too. They 
are
polite. They listen to us. Some are medical students. They share what
they know but also learn from us. They use television to enable us
share information with women who live in other parts of the world. The
health centre is controlled by women. The women have been taught to
carry out their own cervical examination. It is amazing. Abortion
services are available, and there are support groups, trained by
students of psychology to counsel women dealing with issues of
premenstrual problems, infertility, and menopause.=92 Good God, even in
the USA I don=92t know of any place where women have such clinics.
Should I share my surprise? No, I decide to keep quiet lest I disturb
the flow of our discussion. 

My mother explains that women have been provided with special 
cameras to see their reproductive organs.  This has imbued them with a
sense of confidence. My sister says that one woman, on seeing her
cervix, burst into a song, the African way. She could not believe that
her cervix was so beautiful, elegant and artistically put together. 
She always imagined that it was a mass of dark ugly blood, but there
it was in all its glory defining her womanhood.

During the next two days, I discover that university students are
sharing information with communities through informal gatherings, in
homes, community centres, churches and schools. Communities are
listened to and respected. Their experiences echo each other within
these meetings. Popular education techniques are applied
(participative and interactive methodology based on Paolo Freire=92s ,
the Brazilian educator=92s methods  but much more gender sensitive).
Even engineering students seem to be versed well in these methods.
Resource centres are everywhere and are well equipped with mobile
phones, computers and cameras. Why did I stay away for so long? A
sense of shame overwhelms me and I burst into tears. My auntie looks
at me and whispers to my mother that I need a brain scan. I am tempted
to believe her.

Some teachers in the neighbourhood have become facilitators. 
Communities are raising money through baking, (using indigenous 
stoves) selling plants, individual contributions from sale of crops,
friends, men and women who see the importance of having an 
information
rich society are all contributing. It is amazing.  The small project
sustain their resources centres.

As I stay in the village, I witness many other changes that have taken
place while I was away. Farmers are well equipped with information
about the dangers of using pesticides. They know international prices
and have become hard bargainers. They are using computers to order
seeds and other agricultural inputs.  They have mobile phones so
getting in touch with agriculture extension officers is easy. 

It is not just students who go to work in the communities but people
from the rural areas are also going to universities to share their
experiences and to learn. I almost faint when our neighbour, a
toothless cattle keeper in the afternoon of his life, comes to our
home to borrow a suitcase from my mother. He announces that he is
going to the univerthity (university), in Harare, for two weeks.
Apparently, this programme has been going on for the past three years.
Peasants and students are learning together. The university has been
demystified. 

Students of political science are translating government policies to
the peasants. One funny man, having learnt the meaning of policy,
demands to know if dreams can be turned into policies!  He claims he
has a gift for foretelling the future in his dreams and given a
chance, he could guide the country especially the finance ministry. I
can see that one of the students is amused and is trying hard to
suppress his laughter. I have to look away, if I look at him, we shall
laugh.

There are attempts to create =91democratic space=92 for communities 
through provision of information. There are mechanisms for 
communities to channel their concerns to parliamentarians so that
needs and priorities can be incorporated into national policies and
plans. The state and its machineries respect these mechanisms. I am
humbled.

I also have an opportunity to talk to some students. They are simply
amazing. They say they are able to see the application of their
knowledge, they are involved with the outcome and are not mere
bystanders. They have learnt that they do not have all the answers and
are more down to earth than when they first arrived in the village.
They also admit that there are ideas, people and situations that
cannot be experienced in the classroom. 

The few professors I meet, the ones that have come to see what the
students are doing, indicate that working with communities and giving
them information using using various means, has revitalized the
learning process. Knowledge gained in the field is being applied in
the classroom.  The degree of retention of knowledge has also
increased. Students are more critical, more interesting to engage
with, and have stopped sleeping in the classrooms.  Some lecturers
have also stopped sleeping while teaching!

Feedback information about the students=92 performance is shared with
the communities at a one-day student/professors/community 
discussion.
In the audience I see my mother=92s face beaming. Later, when I ask her
why she was beaming, she says, =91I feel proud to realize that I have
contributed to the students motivation to learn=92.  I smile. The
experience is sobering.

Another interesting observation is that people do not seem to be in a
hurry. They strike a casual conversation with even strangers and this
seems to enrich the information they already have. They do not seem to
make a distinction between work and none work. People have become 
so
creative that those who have no jobs often band together and undertake
online studies that lead them into an enterprise of their choice. Most
of the community members have learnt to fix things=85bicycles grinding
mills, saucepans, flat tyres, axes, name it. Instruction tapes are
everywhere.

And by the way, condom machines scattered all the village and people
just go and get them  at leisure.

As I write my experience, I am sitting in my mother=92s smokeless
kitchen. There is a sense of inner peace, self-acceptance and
happiness. Why did I stay away for so long? 


Hope Chigudu
Harare
June 2003