Mr K.G, The Kids Were Thrilled

Mapquest is wonderful if you are in the USA where roads and streets run north-west and east-west. If you are lost, keep on driving because you will come to a highway that will take you to a road to your destination. In London, Mapquest is almost worthless. I found that out three Saturdays ago.

Mr KG invited us to a braai in west London. “Look,” I had said to Mr KG, “I have four people coming along. Is it OK?”

“By all means, Doc, bring ‘em all,” said Mr KG in his quintessential Southern African drawl. “There will be enough sadza and nyama for everyone.”

Up M3, we drive from Soton, left into Beltway 25 then - wait a minute – they don’t call it a beltway. It is the London loop. That is it, yes, M25 is called a loop not a beltway. I’m kindda disappointed they don’t call it a beltway. It would be fun calling David Cameron, the Tory leader, Beltway Dave. He likes to call the British government all sorts of bad names but then cannot wait not only to join it but to lead it. Sounds to me like a shell game, but I digress.

“The map says go west on Exit 16,” orders the navigator.

“What was that? We should be going east,” I protest as I slow down the chuck wagon. I am trying to defy the orders of the navigator but the driver of the car behind us decides to conspire against me. He blasts his horn. It is irritating so I have to comply with the navigator’s command.

We soon find ourselves headed straight to Birmingham. That is where Exit 16 takes you when you go west on M40. Doggamit, them British roads! If you follow the wrong exit, you have to drive to the next town before you can loop your way back into the highway. My crew and I find ourselves driving west, on M40, towards Birmingham instead of east into west London. At last we find a roundabout and do a hairpin turn as we head east towards west London.

The navigator is getting irritated. Everyone else is making fun of him. He is a teenager and he does not like to have his feathers raffled. Teenagers are a curious breed. They think they know everything and when they are proven wrong, their first response if that of anger – I know a few grownups who are like that, too.

“Why are we going to London anyhow?” the navigator sneers at me like a modern-day Tomás de Torquemada. I am forced to endure a verbal waterboarding. The navigator is taking his fury on me. You see, I am what they call a soft target.

“We are going to meet some Rhodesians.”

Aha! I have hit the mother lode. My passengers are suddenly curious, very curious. All four of them were all born after 1980 and they had never seen a "Rhodesian" all their lives. Through ZTV and The Herald, they have heard a lot about "Rhodesians" and how evil they are. To my four passengers, "Rhodesians" might as well have been some frightening monsters.
Anyway, we get lost a number of times but eventually reach our destination.

Boy, is my crew surprised when we finally meet our host and his friends. My crew does not see any monsters, contrary to the image that had been painted for them since childhood. Mr KG and his friends call my crew The Kids. Well, the kids are taught target shooting. Within minutes, just like that, they are hitting the bull’s-eye and knocking tin cans like its second nature.

No! They are not being trained to be Selous Scouts. They are just kids having fun and if anyone insists otherwise, we will meet in court for character defamation and preventing kids from their natural rights to enjoy life. It is early London spring and as the sun buries itself in the belly of the earth, it gets nippy. I huddle by the heater but the kids are too excited to feel the London evening chill.

“Vanhu vaye vari bho manje,” says the navigator on our way back home. Like the other kids, he is atwitter with joy. They all agree that Mr KG and his friends are wonderful. When I tell them a “Rhodesian” cooked the sadza they ate, I witnessed the cooking act, they are as impressed as I was. It was cooked village-style.

The kids realize there is more that binds Zimbabweans to “Rhodesians” than divide them. I wanted to disabuse the kids of the notion Zimbabweans of European ancestry and indigenous Zimbabweans are different from each other. We are one people despite the political noise back home that says otherwise. I could have quoted Dr Martin Luther King; judge a man by the content of his character not the colour of his skin. The kids would have listened more out of respect than anything else then dismiss my words as meaningless abstractions of a man who likes to read too many fangled books. I wanted them to have first-hand experience of what Dr King was advocating.

“Mission accomplished,” I silently say to myself. All the kids have become ardent proponents of America’s Second Amendment, too. They cannot wait to have an encore.

Mr KG, the kids were thrilled.

Zimbabwe - Land of Missed Opportunities

The videos below are a living testament to the incredible pool of talent in Zimbabwe. What good has come out of it? If, to quote Confucius, a picture is worth a thousand words then a video is worth a million words.





This is just the tip of the Eiffel Tower of talent that Zimbabwe has. It is a pity that we have to beg when we have enough to support ourselves. Very sad indeed.

Well, how about a Zimbabwe version of Buena Vista Social Club?

A Layman's Thoughts on Ngugi's Wizard of the Crow

Over on the Wealth of Ideas blog, Emmanuel Sigauke is elated that Ngugi waThiong’o has been nominated for Man Booker Prize. I share Brother Manu's happiness. That happiness is born out of recognition that Ngugi is a colossus and the nomination is a long overdue recognition of what he has done to inspire African writers of younger generations. I hope Ngugi wins it.

Ngugi has an impressive portfolio of literary works but his last work, Wizard of the Crow, is at the bottom of the totem pole. This could be a result of this poor reader expecting something along the same lines as his epic novels like Petals of Blood and Devil on the Cross. I think of Ngugi more as a social commentator who uses novels as a vehicle to articulate his positions on prevailing issues. I bought the novel thinking that it was a tome on the Zimbabwe body politic. Ngugi cleverly used a cover illustration in which the bigger crow has a military-style cap with the Zimbabwe bird on the rim band. Moreover, the truncated Zimbabwean flag on the cover leaves the impression that it is about Zimbabwe.

To add intrigue to it all, the title has allusions to Zimbabwe. You will recall that gunguwo was a derogatory epithet for Bishop Muzorewa - Sekuru Gunguwo – because of his religious vestments. Our gunguwo's was politically killed by the almost magical political and oratory skills of Mugabe. Some dare liken President Mugabe's skills to wizardry. To me, the superficial Zimbabwean metaphor simply stands out but what is inside is something else.

It would be fairly easy to posit that Ngugi tried to pull a sly marketing gimmick by exploiting Mugabe’s unpopularity at the time of the publishing of the book. I have no idea what motivated Ngugi into using the Zimbabwean imagery. I will leave that to gurus of literature. I do not have a degree in writing with a keen eye for literature analysis. I am a simple scientist. Be that as it may, my comments aired herein and elsewhere are not an imputation of Ngugi’s book. I do not regret buying the book.

Anyway, a comparison of the author's works is inevitable. I would call it the unavoidable consequence of unintended relativity. For a layman like me not well-versed in the intricacies and academic intrigues of literature beyond what I did at O-Level, I can say not all of a writer's books are equally good. Some will be exceptionally good and some will be relatively poor while the rest will be somewhere in the middle. In science we call that trend a Gaussian distribution. It is quite common, like a dictate of nature.

This is the case with all the books of famous writers in my library. I have copies of Mark Twain's Joan of Arc, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. In my opinion, the latter two are classics – classics are not just books I display, I read them, too. The former tastes sour by comparison. I say so because I have read all three. I could say the same about John Steinbeck novels, Tony Morrison novels, Achebe novels, Lewis Lapham books and so on and so forth.

Ngugi is proud of his Kikuyu lineage and writes in his mother tongue. What the rest of the world consumes from his plate are translations. It is well and fine to bear this in mind. However, can this be used as a caveat to shirk a comparison of his novels? When we invoke such caveats about his the novels, as we read them in English, originally written in Kikuyu, does it not come across as a circuitous admission that the work under discussion is relatively substandard? As Ngugi himself states in Decolonizing the Mind, his most celebrated novels published after Petals of Blood were originally written in Gikuyu. As far as my rudimentary literature tastes are concerned, the quality of these books was not diminished by translation into English. Why would Wizard of the Crow be an exception unless it was comparatively poor right from the very beginning?

The judgement passed on the quality of a book is a matter of personal taste akin to snake venom; some call it poison that has to be avoided at any cost while others use it as medicine.

Is Pastor Chris A Charlatan?

Last night I read the review on Pastor Chris’s book by Ms Sarudzai Mabvakure. With all due respect, I think Pastor Chris is confused. When he says Jesus died for us, I wonder where Jesus ever said that. I know Paul made such wild declarations. I have read the Bible but I have never come across any part in which Jesus claimed that he would die to conquer death for his followers.

While we are at it, how does Pastor Chris define the process of getting born again?

The idea that kings rule by Divine Right, as alluded to in Ms Mabvakure’ review is debunked by First Samuel 8:10-17. Anyway, who are supposed to be ruled by the believers of Pastor Chris' ilk? This quest for temporal power is strange if we bear in mind that Jesus said blessed are the poor for they will inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. The world does not need anymore theocratic oligarchs. The few we have are more than enough!

Equally strange is the notion that “The right or the privilege to live is reserved for the born again Christian.” What about the billions who were put on this planet by God and who do not subscribe to Pastor Chris’ brand of theology, by what authority are they denied the right or privilege to live? Does it mean that they all deserve the grizzly fate of the Amalekites?

Pastor Chris' claims have a sulphurous smell of bigotry that could easily verge on the genocidal. Let us not forget that Pastor Chris is a Nigerian Pentecostal whose country of origin is notorious for pastors who force members to pay fees for exorcism and anyone who fails is condemned to death by emollition; please watch the video posted by Rense. Be warned, it is very graphic and sickening.

One question commends itself, is Pastor Chris a charlatan? I sure would like to exchange correspondences with him because I find his claims deeply disturbing and devoid of scriptural merit.

PDF of Jesus's Dubious Historicity

As promised, I have my essay entitled The Dubious Historicity of Jesus Christ posted as a pdf.

Viewer feedback greatly welcome, seriously.

Can I Have a Witness? The Dubious Historicity of Jesus Christ

Josh McDowell’s book, More Than A Carpenter, is the most-cited script by Southern (American) Baptists whenever questions regarding the authenticity of the historical character called Jesus Christ pops up. I was fortunate enough to get a copy from a white Mississippian Southern Baptist, who claimed to have been born again, after I brought to his attention the pagan origins of the resolution, in the form of an imperial decree, of the still-controversial doctrine of the trinity. He did not want to hear anything about Arius, Athanasius or Emperor Constantine but, after quoting a few Biblical verses that contradicted his stated belief in the dogma, he angrily thrust the little book into my hands. “Read it,” he commanded as he shoved McDowell's book into my hand, “it will answer your darned questions!”

Suffice it to say it is a nice little book but woefully inadequate in terms of addressing or clarifying the historicity of Jesus Christ. All practicing Christian and many practicing Moslems take the scriptural evidence of the existence of Jesus prima facie. If only this was true.

The scriptural narrations are testimonies of individuals so that they are, fortunately, subject to the Biblically mandatory evidence-validation edicts. Pursuant to said edicts, a person who makes a claim must put forth witnesses to verify the validity of his or her claim, viz.; Deuteronomy 13:1-5, Exodus 4:1-9.) and Deut. 18:18-22). In fact, Jesus himself, or a character by that name says in John 5:31, "If I testify about myself, my testimony is not valid." In Matthew 18:16 – 17; he says, "[T]ake with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established." Similarly, the character called Paul, in 2 Corinthians 13-2 says; “In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.”

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I have collated Bible texts of witnesses that seem to prove that the witnesses who testify about Jesus abysmally fail the evidence-validation test. It has been a worthy errand. Every time a group of Mormon missionaries or Jehovah's Witnesses knock at my door, I invite them in and pull out the essay I have written but not published. They cannot rebut the points in the essay and so they leave and promise to return with answers. Unfortunately, they never come back.

I will be posting the essay, as a pdf, in due course. Alternatively, I could offer it to Emmanuel or Ivor, if they do not mind posting rouble-rousing tracts.

Sarudzayi Chifamba-Barnes: Zimbabwean Entrepreneur

by Jonathan Masere

14th February 2009

When it comes to writing and publishing, Sarudzayi, whose interesting interview is shown here, is a trail blazer and her travails have paved a broad path for those of us who are following in her footsteps. I knew she had written a book, The Endless Trail for which she got a pittance but little did I know that she had previously written another one and saw not a single quid for her effort. It is from her experience that I quickly realized that the book business is a jungle in which the operative rule is eat-or-you-will-be-eaten or, as we would say it in Shona: kakara kununa hudya kamwe.

Unfortunately the publisher is always the gorged predator and the poor writer the helpless prey. Publishing is a very tough business. There is no room for sentimentalities. It is deeply disturbing that famous writers are living like paupers as publishers get rich. Once in a while, a writer strikes a rich seam of gold and does very well. Think of J. K. Rowling or Zimbabwe-born Alex McCall Smith. How many J. K. Rowlings are there in the world? I can safely say that Zimbabwe has a whole slough of writers like Alex. However, unlike said Ms Rowling and Smith, many will not get the recognition and the subsequent financial windfall befitting their effort.

Saru could have opted for the easy road of hawking her works to famous publishers but, I suspect, she decided to do it the hard way. With sheer will, she could have struck her own literary Comstoke Lode. Some of us are thankful she opted to take the tough road of starting her own publishing company, The Lions Press Limited. It was a tough gamble but for a tough and resolute Zimbabwean, she has fearlessly grabbed that bull by the horns. The responses have been very encouraging.

It is the story of the underdog boldly taking on the behemoth and doing well. Crooked publishers have been put on notice by Sarudzayi. It is comeuppance time and some of us will be on the side of the underdog. This one small step for this Daughter of the Soil of Zimbabwe is turning into one giant stride for the down-trodden writer.

Final Cover of My Book

On the 7th of December 2008, blogger Namgcobhar suggested using a cover illustration that would entice children. “[A]ren't you missing the hare and the tortoise there? I'm thinking kids might take to those faster that the women; they do judge books by the covers kani!”

I took this wise advice to heart because it made good marketting sense. I decided to change the cover illustration pursuant to Namgcobhar’s suggestion. The new cover is below.

Copies should be ready next week.

Daiton Somanje the New Mukadota

I bought a DVD with a collection of songs by Daiton Somanje and Pengaudzoke. It is a gem, if you are into Zimbabwean music. The music and dancing are superb, with none of the frills you get from the likes of Lilly Allen, Amy Winehouse even Kanye West. In my opinion Daiton is the successor to Mukadota. I wish someone would give him the opportunity to display the array of talent that he has. In the DVD, the man's brilliant comedian talents flash to the surface.

Daiton and Pengaudzoke sing and dance for real. Anywhere else but Zimbabwe, these guys would be very rich. I can imagine them on the David Letterman's Late Show or NBC Today Show. The kabhasikoro dance would make them an instant hit. My teenage son has been rivetted by Penngaudzoke. A fan of Kanye West and Amy Winehouse, he said, "It is not right that Amy is a millionaire who does nothing but moo and scratch herself while performing but genuine singers like Daiton are scrapping at the bottom of the barrel. Daiton is better than Kanye, too."

When things get to normalcy in Zimbabwe, let us hope and pray that these highly talented guys get their due reward. In the meantime it is important to make sure that we do not cheat them by burning their CDs and DVDs. Every time we do that we are taking food from their tables, stripping off clothes from their children’s backs and also depriving them of medicine. For these reasons alone, I do not burn my CDs for anyone.

We need to support our own whenever possible. I ran into a Zimbabwean gym instructor who wanted to know if I had any South African music CDs. He wanted to use them for his aerobics class. I wanted to know why he wanted South African music when Zimbabwe has very good music that can be used for aerobics class like Mabvi neMagokora by Nicholas Zakaria and the Khiama Boys. He could not give me a straight answer. I do not have anything against South Africans but going for low-quality music from South Africa, like the Zimbabweans of the M’Zansi Jams programme on OBE, in preference to very good Zimbabwean music annoys me. I told the clown he had an inferiority complex. The clown did not like it and I did not really care because I had told him the ugly truth.

He went to a Group A school and is still stuck in that bygone era where they used to say exsir, whatever the hell that word means, as an exclamation mark to every sentence. I went to a Group A school myself but I cannot find that as an excuse of frowning upon my own kind. This is quite common though.

At one time, my friends and I drove three hours to Washington D.C. for a graduation party for Zimbabwean friends. The DJ was playing MC Lyte, Tupac and Biggie Smalls. I went to him and asked for Zimbabwe music. I told him I had just driven from the number one-partying school in America. If I had wanted to listen to Junior Mafia and Tupac, why would I waste three hours on the road when I could just go to the one of the local hip-hop joints?

He started playing Zimbabwean music and everyone, including the exsir brigade that was present, was in a lather as we all joyously celebrated. That was the Zimbabwean spirit and it made me happy.

Israel Getting Defeated by Its Supporters

I usually like to stay away from politics but watching what is going on in Gaza I have to say a word or two. Israel seems to lose its high moral ground everytime one of its supporters goes on television. The other day Joshua Muravchik was on Aljazeera saying the stark fact that there is a disproportionate number of Palestinians killed was irrelevant. Why people in Israel let Muravchik speak on their behalf is something I find incredible. The man is very arrogant and, because of this, I think Israel is going to lose what matters the most, the world's sympathy.

A Fitting Farewell To a Friend

Last Saturday my family and I went to church for a funeral service of a friend who passed away earlier in the week. I am not particularly fond of going to church, and funerals bring back painful memories, but my wife insisted that I go. When the boss says jump, it is imprudent to ask why you have too; simply jump or ask how high the boss wants you to jump.

Anyway, we used to see this woman who carried herself with great dignity as she walked to and from work. “She must be from Zimbabwe,” my wife said after noticing the lady’s hair pleated in a corn-row style.

“Perhaps you should say hello,” I said. “You and I have seen her for a little while now, we may as well get to know her.”

As a general rule, if I meet a person for the first time I do not say anything. The second time I meet the same person, I try to exchange greetings by either saying hello or nodding my head. If we meet for the third time, I stop and introduce myself. If you have met a person more than twice chances are quite high that you will meet the person many more times in the future. I believe in the adage that it is always rewarding to be good to the people you meet on your way up because you will meet the same people on your way down, as the late reggae artist Prince Fari, Michael Williams, famously said in one of his songs. I try to be good to people I meet whether I am on my way up or down. The reward of being nice to others is in the act.

My family finally got to know the affable lady, who turned out to be a fellow Zimbabwean as we had suspected. She was a devout member of one of the local churches. It was wonderful since my wife and I were looking for a church for my Bible-thumbing teenage son — the fruit that fell close to its maternal grandmother tree than its father three. My son found a good church right within the neighbourhood.

Needless to say my family got comfortably close to the affable lady. Whenever the pigeons did not ruin some of the vegetable in my garden, we would take some to the friend. Unfortunately, not long after that, she fell ill. Her parents came all the way from Zimbabwe. I enjoyed their company given that I am much more comfortable in the company of elderly folk than my contemporaries.

Watching an elderly parent tending an ailing child was very tough. It should be the other way round, an elderly parent tended by a child. Growing up, it was common for children to bury their elderly parents. It was the rule and the reverse was the exception. There is an inversion that I find deeply disturbing.

Watching the elderly parents of our newly found friend visit the hospital each and everyday really brought this painful phenomenon into focus. Something is terribly wrong but, unfortunately, I cannot put my finger on it. If I believed in astrology I would say the stars of the heavens are misaligned. As an advocate of traditional customs, the sensible aspects thereof and not the commercialized version, I think we owe God and our nation’s beneficent spirits a propitiatory debt.

Sadly, the friend lost her gallant battle against her illness and is now in the company of angels. Along with many of her relatives and friends, I went to church to bid her farewell on her journey to mankind’s eternal home. It is a journey that leaves a permanent scar on those left behind.

After the service, we gathered in a nearby hall and the sister-in-law of the deceased friend broke into a Shona traditional funeral song, Ino Yavenguva Yekuchema Gamba Redu – It Is Time to Mourn Our Heroine. The church-organ player and choir had done a wonderful and very commendable job during the gripping service. The spontaneous breaking into an African traditional funeral gathering in a church hall was only the addition of exclamation mark.

I went home to collect my drums. Along with my son and another gentleman who grew up in the Chivhu rural area, we played our drums as we mourned and celebrated the passage of one of Africa’s daughters. We did it the old-fashioned way. There was singing, dancing and ululating. The pain was somewhat assuaged. It was a fitting farewell to a friend who went home way too soon.

One-Man Kpanlogo Drumming

Here is a kpanlogo beat I learnt when I was in West Virginia. All I did was listen to the West Virginia University African Ensemble, buy a drum and try to imitate what I had heard. Most people think of a drum as monomembraphone so that more than one drummer is required to surmon the spirits of the ancestors. In Zimbabwe, one drummer is generally adequate; that is what I grew up with. We do not have a whole array of drums as is common in West Africa so, using just one drum, I tried to play all the beats I heard from the WVU African Ensemble.

I have to thank Mark Stone, co-founder of Jumbie Records. His Ghanaian wife, Sewaa, wanted me to get one of Mark's kpanlogo drums. It was Mark who helped me learn how to play Ghanaian drums and the Zimbabwean in me learnt to spice everything up. I paid a nominal price for the drum and, to this day, I am truly thankful. I play the kpanlogo beat using using one of my conga drums. Enjoy the one-man ensemble.

Video of Tsuro Saves a Princess Drumbeat

To all the good people who have waited patiently for the drumbeat I played based on one of my folktales, Tsuro Saves a Princess, I have embedded the video clip captured by my son. The youtube version is below. My son was trying to show off my Ghanaian kpanlogo drum and so the sound tends to track off a wee bit as he scans around. I will try to get a video with sound as good as in the audio clip. Anyway, enjoy ...

Tsuro Ridza Mudende

In one of the stories in the book, African Folktales for Children, the animals gather at a dancing square for an old-fashioned breakdown. Tsuro and the baboons play drums as they sing a song extolling the hare’s drumming expertise. The drum beat is embedded below. I played the beat myself. Among other hobbies, I love to play drums.

Saru, Jeff and I

A few months ago, I saw a column on the zimbabwetimes.com in which the author wrote about the issue of correlation, or lack thereof, between academic astuteness, examplified by holding a Ph.D. , and sound political judgement and an insatiable quest for publicity. The author was brave enough to post contact details. I responded to demur. The author was very cordial and we exchanged a few correspondences. That is how I met Mrs Sarudzayi Chifamba-Barnes, for she was the author of the article that had piqued my interest.

Somewhere along the way, Sarudzayi mentioned her recently published book, The Village Storyteller. Saru graciously sent me a copy. She published it herself after running into scalpers with her first book. Well, I received the book and was pleasantly surprised by the book.

My son and wife loved the book. An elderly white lady saw me reading the book and looked at it with curiosity. She only wanted to look at the illustrations but ended up reading a few stories. "It is as if I am in the village hut with Mrs Rwizi and all the children," said the elderly lady. "It is very interesting. Do you mind if I take it home to read it?" I could not say no because her eyes were glistening with excitement.

From that moment, I knew Saru had written an incredible book. I went home and wrote a review, the first time I had ever done this outside of scientific papers I had peer reviewed in my days in American academia. The review has been published in The Zimbabwean newspaper. Every word I wrote is true. The book is worth every penny spent purchasing it.

Not only did I get a very good book but Saru offered to publish my book after I told her I had a collection of short stories but I had no idea what to do with them. She warned me to watch out for scalpers. She even put me in touch with a wonderful illustrator, Jeffrey Milanzi. Brother Jeff, as I like to call him, is a genius. Through illustrations, he has captured the essence of every story I gave him. Needless to say that I consider Saru and Jeff my newly found good friends. Without these two, my mountain of material would always be just that, a mountain of material. Claude and my wife would always tell me to get on with it.

For years, some have said I am a lucky man. I used to object to this because I felt the effort I put in trying to make things work was being overlooked. One day, out of the blue Mississippi sky, a fellow scientist from India said I was lucky. He asked me to show him my palm and he said the palm lines were ample proof I was a lucky person. I laughed at him. A very brilliant chemist had read my palm and told me I was lucky but I dismissed him off.

Looking back, I would have to say I have been very lucky when it comes to the friends. Luck is when Divine providence smiles upon a person and the person recognizes the heavenly gift and makes the most out of it. I did not meet Saru, Jeff, Claude and the eclectic friends fortuitously.

The Mysterious Ways of The Mosquitoes of Brazoria County

It Is A Good Friend Who Brings Out The Best In A Man's Character
One of my best friends pretty much upbraided me, as any good friend ought to do, for sitting on a pile of good short stories I have been writing since I was putting together my Ph.D. dissertation more than a decade ago. He knows the volume of the work I am sitting on since he used to reading my manuscripts. He and my wife are the must pushy people I know, and I say it in a very complimentary way. Just like my wife does all the time, he keeps on telling me others are putting comparatively weaker material out while I sit and let dust gather on what he and my wife call literary gems. Doc C. M., your point is taken to heart. You never flagged in your effort to spur me on, which is why you are a good businessman.

The Genesis
Well, it all started as a way of winding down. I did not want to think about chemistry all the time and I figured out that the best way to clean the dizzying equations and the theories of finding systematic order in natural chaos out of my system was to grab a Mark Twain book and read till the donkeys brayed. The trick worked for a while but sooner than later, I would start scribbling the fangled equations in the novel I was reading. “I could start writing short stories,” I thought to myself. That is how it started. Fortunately, I have always been fond of writing and so I decided to scribble a few stories just for the heck of it.

Appalachia and Beyond
One of the best things about going to school in Appalachia is the ordinary people you meet, the kind that is often portrayed in Hollywood movies as gun-totting and lynch-happy poor whites. Before leaving Zimbabwe, I had been sternly warned to stay within city limits if I did not want to end as a strange fruit hanging on an oak tree. As soon as I was in Appalachia, what do you know, I went looking for the gun-totting, tobacco-chewing and lynch happy poor whites of Appalachia. I did this for one very simple reason; I am a sceptic by nature. Someone had tried to paint a terrifying image of the poor whites of the USA as dangerous and uncultured but I wanted to find out for myself.

What I found was the diametric opposite of what I had been made to belief. Belief or faith without facts and my personality are like water and oil, they do not mix. That is what opened my eyes. As soon as I could pick their drawl and they could understand my heavy pronunciation of words, the poor whites of the Appalachia wilderness and this black village schoolboy from Deep Africa had a whale of a time.

The poor whites in the remote sections of the USA are some of the most hospitable people walking the face of this planet. When they invite you to their homes, which they do, go on an empty stomach because they will feed you till kingdom comes. They may love their guns and their tobacco but, contrary to Hollywood tall tales, they are very cultured and protective of their families and friends. As a black and a foreigner, I knew I was safe amongst these unfairly demonized good people. Believe it or not, they are also very educated, not the book-wise education. About the penchant for lynching! What lynching?

The Works
I sorted the short stories based on how closely related they are. All the folk stories are collected in the book pending publication. The next book contains stories based on my youth and a few interesting incidents that happened while I was in the USA, all the stories have a heavy fictional flavour.

In a collection of ten short stories I try to capture the wonderful times I had with the good people of Appalachia hills, the pinewoods of the Deep South and the Coastal Plains of south-eastern Texas. The story entitled The Mysterious Ways of The Mosquitoes of Brazoria County is a spoof based on an old friend I met in Texas. I have taken the project very seriously. The illustration below bears testimony to that. The other stories will be in another book that I will work on as soon as time permits.

Rough Illustration for The Day The Sun Rotted short story.

My good friend will keep on prodding me to get on with it. He is a good man.

About the illustrations ...

The very first comment I received concerned the cover illustration of my book. My wife liked the illustration on the cover and I was never going to argue with her. I would never win anyway. Well, the book has 20 illustrations. A whooping 18 out of the 20 illustrations feature animals and I hope children will love them.

The suggestion to have an eye-catching cover picture makes good marketting sense. It is duly noted and I am truly thankful. I will try to have another cover design for the American edition. Anyway, here is one of the illustrations;

Allelujah! A Book Is Born! Allelujah!

I am on the verge of publishing a book after inspiration from one of my favourite writers, Professor J. Abbenyi of North Carolina State University. The book is entitled African Folktales for Children. Take it from me, it is a far cry from a simple retelling of the same old village folk stories. Watch this space for further details. A design of the cover is shown below.

I have a completed draft of another book, The Clan Oracle and Other Short Stories, a collection of ten short stories akin to Mark Twain's early works. Like they say, it is futile to chase after two hares. I am chasing after the first hare, metaphorically speaking, and will be after the other as soon as I bag the first one.