Vambe: Why I teach Shona from the diaspora

Creative singer and teacher Electah Kudzayi Vambe says she teaches Shona from the diaspora to ensure that the heritage is carried forward through children.

Vambe (EV) spoke about her craft when she appeared on the UK series of the In Conversation with Trevor  talk show hosted by Alpha Media Holdings chairman Trevor Ncube (TN).

Below is an except from the interview.

TN: Electah welcome to In Conversation with Trevor.

EV: Thank you Mr Trevor for having me. I'm so privileged to be on this platform. I really appreciate this.    

TN: We love what you do. It's an honour for us to have this opportunity to sit down with you.

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You are doing something very different and very unique, try and unpack it to us as briefly as possible. What is it that you do?

EV: Okay I like to call myself a cultural ambassador in that I want to ensure that our heritage is carried forward through our children, and to do that we started by teaching Shona online so that we could reach all the children across the diaspora, who are from Zimbabwe to ensure that it's not lost in translation and also to make sure that they are proud of who they are and where they come from.

TN: I was struck by something that runs across the things that you do, which is  ‘ziva pawakabva paunoenda’. How did you arrive at that very powerful statement, that powerful Shona proverb?

EV: I would think it started with my son when it was homework time. I would notice that I was very keen to do the other homework, but not the Shona homework. I would always sort of outsource that and I think he began to pick up on that...

TN: You as a mother?

EV: Yes. He started to notice that I would pass it on to somebody else and I think that started rubbing off on him and he started saying I don't like Shona; it’s too hard and because I am the person who is supposed to be assisting him is also finding it difficult.

I reached out to some friends and they seemed to also feel the same way. Their children also didn't like Shona because it was hard so for me I thought we need to fix this because it can't die.

My son was all fully English speaking. So I then started being deliberate about it speaking to him in Shona and I thought let me start some Shona lessons and we started among friends and then it just grew from there.

TN: I'm fascinated. I hear your child is battling with it, and has an attitude to the language but ordinarily most of us would just walk away and do other things, but you didn't.

EV: No, because I started to see that, I felt like it's got to do with your identity.

So the problem with discarding of where you come from, you start to doubt, you have a lot of self-doubt because you don't even know who you are, who am I, you don't know where you come from, you don't know your heritage because in that heritage lies so many things.

So for example when I look at my own heritage I see traits, I see gifts and that's already told me who I am because now along my lineage on my mother's side, it's full of teachers. On my father's side, there are musicians and also on my mother's side, there are few musicians and so that has actually shaped who I am by just looking back to see where I came from.

TN: What kind of feedback are you getting regarding the work that you are doing, particularly the teaching of Shona?

EV: The parents would like to thank you so much and I think what was difficult for them because if you are in a home, suppose in Canada, you are the only ones who speak Shona.

The children are no longer surrounded by anyone else who speaks Shona so it gets lost because everyone is speaking English, particularly my generation because we were pushed to speak English.

Our parents really wanted us to do well so they really pushed us to these good schools to speak English throughout and learn really good English so that we can do well in life, but unfortunately the unintended consequences now is that we are parents, who don't know how to speak Shona to our own children.

TN: Have you had different kinds of responses, to say look I'm in the UK, I'm in Canada what do I need Shona for? 

EV: Yes, not from the people who sign up because clearly they are happy with this project, but I think I was like that myself.

I will give you an example of myself personally. At school we only had to do Shona up to ZJC then after that you could drop it and we all did because it was hard, and it was not necessary, because the thinking was ‘What am I going to use it for’.

But you are going to need it because here I am in the UK and I'm so proud of who I am, and you will find that now with this globalisation a lot of people are marrying into other cultures and you will find a lot of my adult students are actually spouses of Zimbabweans, who have come to the lessons to learn about our culture.

There must be something great about it if they want to know more, they want to learn the language, they want to learn the culture, especially the adults.

We teach them about our actual culture; if it's a lady we are going to teach her things like what muroora does, her duties when you visit your mother-in-law, this is the expectation and so it's almost sort of bringing them in and they absolutely love it.

It’s beautiful, it's so much fun to share what I'm about but now it's difficult if you don't even know what you are about.

TN: So I get the sense Electah that you are correcting what went wrong with our upbringing, which has not been corrected generally.

If you were to go back and rewind your life to that of ZJC what something different would you do regarding the way our languages are taught?

EV: I think I would make it compulsory, but also make it not so difficult, that's the truth.

The thing is  I grew up in a home where my parents both spoke to us in Shona, but they didn't talk to me in a mean way.

If they say (wakuda kupinda imwe nzira) I just know I'm in trouble, but you see what I feel like for me personally when you now start bringing in some of the stuff, it's a bit difficult but I don't want to make it sound too difficult.

I just think maybe the way it's taught and how it's put across, I will give you like for now my objective is to make it as relevant as possible.

TN:  Let's go there. How are you doing it, you found innovative ways of teaching Shona talk to us through that?

EV: I personally prefer to teach children. I have other teachers who teach adults, but for children I use music.

I find that they do better with retaining information if it's sung because I always say if you can sing it, you can say it.

So we start with just singing and just making it more fun and not blackboard.

I call it blackboard teaching which is very ah a, e, i, o,u.

 It’s kind of boring. We put it into a song and we do actions and we dance to that and we use a lot of colours even in our lessons the material that I use it's very colorful and I try my best to be as animated as possible and short. It’s not a three-hour lesson.

It's probably 20 minutes and then the other 10 minutes we are either dancing we are sharing stories and we are singing.

TN: Examples of songs that you sing? 

EV: Okay I will sing. I have had to write some songs, that's another thing. I didn't feel like there were enough songs to sing.

There’s one about the weather, it's called Mamiriro ekunze, so that one goes and then we learn about this so you have already learned about what a hat is, you have already learned what kupisa, you also learn what you wear.

So now they have already learned something in a song without even realizing it.

TN: That's beautiful.

EV: So from that lesson forward I will ask you (tarisa panze).

We do a little rhyme then everyone takes a turn, because they are all over the world so the one in Canada is going to look out the window, it's snowing they will tell me, the one in Zimbabwe it's hot they will tell me so that's how we do it.

TN And you have written a book?

EV: Yes, which is  also on weather (mamiriro ekunze). 

TN: Why has the weather become the tool by which you teach?

EV: Well this is just one of but you know global warming I suppose so but I think it's just one of those things that children need to learn, to say amongst many other things so we will do maybe a song about what your routine is in the morning.

 So we'll sing a song about  when I wake up; this is what I do; this is what I eat then so the next maybe progression is let's learn about the weather since I'm now outside we are going to learn what a pencil is.

When I'm at school, when I play this is what I do. so it's just one of the tools that I thought of using.

TN: And you are doing this online? Where is your biggest market?

EV: It changes, initially it was the United States then it changed to the UK, then at some point it was South Africa actually right now it is South Africa. We have actually done every continent except for Asia

TN: You have just sung a song for us. Talk to us, take us back to the day or the time you discovered that you had this passion for singing?

EV: I can't pinpoint a day, but I do remember a particular thing I used to do with my little sister.

We used to sit outside the house. Our window sills were low and I would pretend to play the piano there and make her sing.

I was her music teacher.  So I think I have always enjoyed that. I think I was about Grade One or Two when we were doing that then with time I guess I didn't realise it and it's a thing that I think parents should really look out for.

My parents then noticed a bit later that I like this music thing and then in Grade Six I joined the choir.

I remember they brought me a keyboard for my 11th birthday. That was the best day of my entire life because it was recognition of what I liked.

When my father heard that I'm interested in music, he was like what does she want?

They got me a keyboard and then later I decided  I don't want the keyboard, I want the guitar and my dad said fine, buy her the guitar.

 So whatever I wanted in terms of music I was supported 100%, very much supported.

So yeah I think there I have always wanted to be a singer I suppose I just found myself singing.

•  This United Kingdom series of “In Conversation With Trevor” is brought to you in partnership with Nyaradzo Group. “In Conversation With Trevor” is a weekly show broadcast on YouTube.com//InConversationWithTrevor.