Sweet Medicine

Panashe Chigumadzi

Description

Sweet Medicine takes place in Harare at the height of Zimbabwe’s economic woes in 2008. Tsitsi, a young woman, raised by her strict, devout Catholic mother, believes that hard work, prayer and an education will ensure a prosperous and happy future. She does well at her mission boarding school, and goes on to obtain a scholarship to attend university, but the change in the economic situation in Zimbabwe destroys the old system where hard work and a degree guaranteed a good life.Out of university, Tsitsi finds herself in a position much lower than she had set her sights on, working as a clerk in the office of the local politician, Zvobgo. With a salary that barely provides her a means to survive, she finds herself increasingly compromising her Christian values to negotiate ways to get ahead.Sweet Medicine is a thorough and evocative attempt at grappling with a variety of important issues in the postcolonial context: tradition and modernity; feminism and patriarchy; spiritual and political freedoms and responsibilities; poverty and desperation; and wealth and abundance.

Sujets

• Littérature Africaine
• Littérature Africaine
• Littérature
• Littérature
• Novela corta
• Nouvelle, Quebec
• Nouvelle
• Littérature
• Littérature sud-africaine
• Littérature Sud-Africaine

Informations

• Publié par: Blackbird Books
• Date de parution: 01 août 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781928337140
• Langue: English

Extrait

Praise for Sweet Medicine
“Panashe Chigumadzi’s Sweet Medicine is as fresh and bracing as mountain air. It presents us with a memorable gallery of characters, mainly women, headed by the indomitable Tsitsi, who have to negotiate their way around and often confront a patriarchal society. There are choice sequences that are rendered with humour and sensitivity. Written in the tradition of a bildungsroman, the novel grants us the eyes of a young woman with which to look at a society coming to terms with itself.”
– Mandla Langa, author of The Texture of Shadows
“Tsitsi, an intelligent young woman who has been raised to believe that hard work and education pays, finds herself, upon graduation, condemned to a job that barely pays. Her mother’s hope, she soon decides that she must make a plan if she is to survive. How Panashe Chigumadzi deftly deals with Tsitsi’s decision as a young woman who must make it against all odds is what makes Sweet Medicine a must-read. Through this book and Tsitsi’s story, Chigumadzi shows us how a country’s political policies, can destroy the very people it’s supposed to serve.”
– Zukiswa Wanner, journalist and author of London Cape Town Joburg
“ Sweet Medicine is an exquisitely told story. Chigumadzi is not overwhelmed by the sensitivity and delicate nature of the Zimbabwean narrative but observes and narrates with skilful detachment to personal and public crises as they unfold.”
– Tinashe Mushakavanhu, The Standard (Zimbabwe)
“Written in the wake of Aidoo, Dangarembga and Adichie, Sweet Medicine has a voice and drive all of its own: witty, incisive and thought-provoking, it is a novelistic debut you will find hard to put down.”
– Dr Ranka Primorac, University of Southampton






Sweet Medicine
Panashe Chigumadzi




First published by Blackbird Books in 2015
Second, third and fourth impression 2016
Fifth and sixth impression 2017
Seventh impression 2019
Eighth impression 2020
593 Zone 4
Seshego
Polokwane 0742
South Africa
www.blackbirdbooks.africa
© Panashe Chigumadzi, 2015
All rights reserved.
ISBN 978-1-928337-14-0
Also available in print.
Cover design by Maggie Davey
Cover artwork © Sindiso Khumalo
See a complete list of BlackBird Books titles at www.blackbirdbooks.africa


Kuna Mama, Deddie, Fari
Constants in my life. As you always say, “There are only four of us.” In all that you have done, the greatest gift that you have given me is letting me know that I am enough.


Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Acknowledgements
About the Author
An Exciting New Look for BlackBird Books Fiction





Prologue
“You cannot fight an evil disease with sweet medicine,” says the n’anga .
The sound of her voice is unexpected. Perhaps it had been the bad network reception that had obscured and forced it into a strong, raspy voice as they shouted to hear each other on the phone before, because it is now soft and reedy.
It is winter, so it is still dark, even at 5 am.
The consulting room is a brick appendage to the n’anga ’s matchbox house. The early-morning consultation time did not require much negotiating. For Tsitsi, the ungodly hour will conceal this clandestine affair. For Mai Matumbu, it means that she can still be on time for her job as an accounts clerk at the Chitungwiza Town Council .
In the glimmer of light from a small fire at the centre of the room, Tsitsi can just make out the large figure of the n’anga , which feels particularly imposing compared to her own small frame.
Up until this point, Tsitsi has kept her eyes on the floor. As she had been led into the consulting room, she had been guided by the sight of the n’anga ’s cracked and calloused heels, only taking account of what was sufficient for her to walk without injury. This, to ensure that there would be no vivid vignettes or recollections of the n’anga and the consultation, and that she would only be able to piece together an apocryphal account, which in time she would dismiss as an hallucination or strange dream.
Now, catching a glimpse of the n’anga ’s chipped red nail polish, Tsitsi is distracted. She squints her eyes at the long, coloured toenails, and feels a sense of doubt creep up on her: what time does any real n’anga have for a frivolous preoccupation with cosmetics? The question overcomes her desire for a no-more-than-hazy recollection, forcing her eyes from the floor. She sees that aside from cowrie shells that decorate the woman’s ample breasts, the n’anga is otherwise a plain-clothes traditional healer in a long-sleeved , black vest and pleated , brown , ankle-length skirt. Before her less-than-ceremonial dress can inspire any further doubts of her legitimacy, a cold breeze quickly points Tsitsi to the impracticality of the kind of bare-legged and bare-breasted traditional regalia she might have expected.
She casts her eyes up to the face of the n’anga . Her skin is like varnished pine wood, not the dark charcoal colour she had expected, and although she has dreadlocks, they are neatly pulled back by an elastic band. The woman is not particularly striking or even feral looking, as Tsitsi had expected from her childish imaginings. She looks nothing like an old African hag, so Tsitsi eases herself further into her surroundings. She even remembers that the woman’s name is Esther, or rather, Mai Matumbu, but Tsitsi does not want to become overly familiar and so keeps her distance, even with her newfound ease.
She casts her eyes around the dimly lit room, peering into each corner, looking thoroughly this way and that, like an Inspector of Native Schools, feeling the concomitant scepticism of the legitimacy of the operation. But she quickly puts that out of her mind. Even if it is to effect some change by means of a placebo effect, she is indifferent, as long as her ends are achieved.
The n’anga points to a grass mat in front of her calloused feet. Tsitsi obeys immediately and kneels before her. She is at first grateful for the mat: it means she will be able to keep the skirt of her African attire free of soot and therefore unsuspicious. But she realises that the smoke from the small fire burning behind the n’anga will linger on her clothes and she will have to change anyway if she wants to avoid any questions.
She kicks off her right Ferragamo heel after she uses the pointed heel on her left foot to dislodge it, and then uses her freed toes to free her left foot. She shivers slightly as the balls of her delicate feet connect with the cold of the polished concrete.
Tsitsi closes her eyes as she feels her heart constrict with both pleasure and pain as she contemplates the n’anga ’s choice of words on the phone: ‘evil disease’ .
Pleasure because , yes, that’s what it is. An evil disease. The omniscience of the n’anga has ensured a fitting diagnosis. A woman herself, she has likely fought the same disease, so she is well equipped to help Tsitsi.
Pain, because of what she fears the evil disease can take away and destroy if it is not eradicated quickly enough.
“I’ll give you something – something strong,” words spoken firmly, reinforcing Tsitsi’s sense of the n’anga ’s omnipotence.
The n’anga kneels down on the mat.
In Tsitsi’s imagining…
From the small fire, smoke curls up in wisps through the winter air as the n’anga begins huffing, letting out infrequent shrills, her eyes rolling back, her head upturned as if to the heavens. Her body shakes violently, causing the cowrie shells around her ample breasts to rattle noisily as she invokes the spirits, beginning her mixture of divination and alchemy. The line is indistinguishable to Tsitsi. Only at this time does she care for the distinction between the healing powers of a n’anga and the divinatory powers of a svikiro . The difference is important as she seeks a herbal remedy to her problems. She is not yet ready to enter that other realm of her own accord.
In reality…
From the small fire, smoke curls up in wisps through the winter air as Mai Matumbu initiates conversation with Tsitsi, further probing the details of her dilemma. As Tsitsi speaks, the woman nods thoughtfully, almost reassuringly, and reconfirms her initial diagnosis of an evil disease .
Tsitsi winces as the woman reaches into her bra and produces a razor. Seeing her hesitation, the woman lays a reassuring hand on her shoulder. Although somewhat comforted by the gesture, she still finds herself leaning back involuntarily as the woman moves forward to bring the razor to Tsitsi’s chest. She tries to suppress her instinct to pull back, to protect herself and to remain still, but she fails, flinching as her chest smarts where the woman draws beads of blood that drop into a wooden bowl held below her chest. The woman rises to her full height and walks heavily and flatfooted, slowly making her way in a manner that seems uncharacteristic of the supernatural, to the backroom-cum-dispensary formed by old, holed curtains with colour faded from long exposure to the sun.
As the curtains part, Tsitsi is unable to sustain the sense of ease and immediately shuts her eyes tightly as her mind’s eye begins to conjure up images of hell: faces of the damned with gaping mouths, revealing jaws with great pointed teeth, seeking victims who are gnashing their teeth in