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In the world that surrounds us today, kids all over are constantly frustrated and annoyed with education. But what if kids didn’t have the opportunity to gain an education? Would that be a gift or a burden? For a kid coming from lots of conflict, poverty, and oppression, education may be neither a gift nor a burden. So the text that answers the question above is “Nervous Conditions” by Tsitsi Dangarembga. This is told from the perspective of a young Rhodesian girl by the name of Tambu. Tambu endures many challenges and struggles while trying to seek education like her late brother Nhamo. She fails to understand that this would be a difficult task due to her being a woman, along with her attempt to transform to English ways while seeking education. This essay will prove how Tambu’s challenges will prevent her from getting away from poverty and oppression. First, it will be shown that Tambu will never get away from the poverty and oppression in colonized Africa because her transformation to English ways disrupts the ways of her native culture. Next, Tambu’s life away from the homestead while seeking education seems like a getaway but is surrounded by her family's conflict/oppression. Lastly, Dangarembga’s idea of African womanhood is reflected as a burden to Tambu due to the struggles and treatment she endures. Although education is considered the key to getting away from poverty and oppression in colonized Africa, Tambu understands she’ll never get away because of her native culture, family oppression, and the burden of womanhood.
Tambu will never get away from the poverty and oppression in colonized Africa because her transformation to English ways disrupts the ways of her native culture. Tambu is taught about her culture and family history. Colonization causes natives to lose their land and culture, and the colonizers enslaved natives. In chapter 2 Tambu’s grandmother states, “... lured by the wizard’s whispers of riches and luxury and driven by the harshness of the homestead, took himself and his family to one of their wizard farms. Only to find that they had been enticed into slavery.”. Tambu’s family history with the English had caused them to be enslaved. This is a message to show Tambu how seeking education through English may be a trap to pull her away from her native culture. English colonization promoted the physical and mental conditions in which the Rhodesians lived through. Jean Paul-Sartre stated, “The condition of the native is a nervous condition.”. The modernized ways of the English live by are much more industrialized than those of Tambu’s Shona culture. The quote above gives deeper meaning to Tambu’s conditions as a Rhodesian based on the act of “assimilation” she endures. Tambu also has a hard time finding a balance between life at the school and life at the homestead. Tambu stated, “I was going to be developed in the way that Babamukuru saw fit, which in the language I understood at the time meant well. Having developed well I did not foresee that there would be reason to regress on the occasions that I returned to the homestead.”(Pg.59). For Tambu to transition towards Education, she has to focus on English ways and forget her native culture. Tambu’s transition from Rhodesia to English ways has disrupted the ways of her native culture due to the imbalance and differences between the two.
Tambus's life away from the homestead, while seeking education, seems like a getaway but is surrounded by her family’s conflicts and oppression. Before Tambu goes off to seek education, she states that all the oppression and tension she endures is because of her deceased brother. In Chapter 1 Tambu stated, “ I was not sorry when my brother died. Nor am I apologizing for my callousness…”(Pg.1). Tambu feels as if had Nhamo never passed away, she wouldn’t have ever been in the middle of conflicts. Babamukuru role in the family was formed towards the idea that he was the head of power. In chapter 8 Tambu stated, “My vagueness and my reverence for my uncle, what he was, what he had achieved, and what he represented and therefore what he wanted, had stunted the growth of my faculty of criticism, sapped the energy that in childhood I had used to define my position.”(Pg.164). Everyone had to follow what he said and what he wanted to happen because of him being educated and being a male. His decisions left many unhappy, but it was what they had to follow. Everyone looked up to him. Tambu is stressed over her parent's wedding, which falls back on her because she is confused and upset. This causes her to run away. In chapter 8 Tambu said, “I knew I had not taken a stand on many issues since coming to the mission, but all along I had been thinking that it was because there had been no reason to…”(Pg. 164). Everything was falling back on Tambu, even after escaping life at the homestead.
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