The cultivation of hope in The Ties that Bind

REVIEWED BY EDDIE ZVINONZWA

PHILLIP Kundeni Chidavaenzi’s The Ties that Bind (New Heritage Press) is a sequel to 2007 National Arts Merit Award-winning novel The Haunted Trail (Longman Zimbabwe, 2006).

The array of themes that Chidavaenzi explores in this exciting, contemporary novel make it a must-read for all book lovers.

The world is still grappling with the problem of HIV/Aids. A lot of funds have been spent in scientific research aimed at tackling the global phenomenon.

However, through his central characters Chiedza and Lincoln, Chidavaenzi manages to bring in an entirely untested approach to the management of the pandemic, especially for the affected and infected.

As a true Christian, Chidavaenzi calls on his faith in divine healing and encourages people to believe in the power of the Almighty in mitigating the scourge.

However, he does not wish people to dump their medication but to continue with it while divine intervention will help them overcome the illness, which some have given in to.

The likes of Synodia, Melisa, Yolanda and Shelter have failed in their battle against one of the world’s most dreaded illnesses. Their deaths also speak of broken dreams.

All the other themes revolve around the issue of HIV and Aids. There is mention of unbridled greed, graft.

Politics, bank closures, power cuts, strikes in the health sector, religion and spirituality, crime, hope, love and sexuality, life and death, perseverance, debauchery, among a host of other themes all make The Ties That Bind worth reading.

It is a refreshing creation and so contemporary given the characters’ use of some of the most recent social media platforms like Whatsapp and Facebook.

Corruption is an ill the country has been struggling to contain but has grown to unprecedented levels.

The levels force one to look back at the world of The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born in which Ghanaian Ayi Kwei Armah claims the cancer has been institutionalised and has become so widespread that it is abnormal for someone to be clean.

“I’m still not convinced though Zimbabwe has become so rotten. Everyone now seems to believe the only free cheese can be found at the mousetrap.”  (p10) Chidavaenzi underlines here that people have become so daring in committing crime.

Besides, graft has worsened the situation. “Of course, we can talk about sanctions but corruption, lack of unity of purpose and selfishness has made the effects more devastating.” (P10)

The selfishness is seen even in the most sane characters. Lincoln deliberately infects a prostitute, assuming the “innocent” woman of the night contracts the deadly virus with that encounter with the lawyer.

“Lincoln lay back in bed. His perverted cravings satisfied, he was surprised he did not even feel a trace of remorse. Deep inside him welled up a morbid wave of satisfaction. This was his conquest.” (p121)

One very positive aspect of Chidavaenzi’s The Ties That Bind is its sincerity and capability to generate hope. Lincoln and Chiedza are very truthful to each other about their state of health.

Somehow, Chidavaenzi seems to be saying that people who are not in denial about their conditions are destined to conquer. This is exactly what we see in Lincoln and Chiedza.

They both have pasts they would not want to remember. Chiedza was infected by corrupt banker Michael Denga while Lincoln’s one-night stand with Yolanda Masosa almost signalled his fall off the edge of the precipice.

However, the transformation the two go through regenerates hope in them, until they get married.

Through Chiedza, Chidavaenzi also takes a swipe at non-governmental organisations working in areas of HIV/Aids for abusing people living with the virus while they use them as bait to lure donors.

Chidavaenzi has unusually powerful female characters. Chiedza, Jackie, Vimbiso probably stand out prominently as the most powerful of the women characters in the narrative, a very rare phenomenon in African fiction.

In her own way, Shelter exhibits unparalleled strength to fight Aids although she finally succumbs.

Jackie at some point acknowledges that Shelter is “wasting away, yes, frightening perhaps. But she is till human. She is still our sister. She deserves to be treated kindly, with dignity and respect”. (p21)

What we see here is boundless compassion for the suffering on others and we see the same in Vimbiso who has been tasked with taking care of Shelter.

There is also need to mention that in the novel, it appears female mortality exceeds that of male characters. Whether this is deliberate on the part of Chidavaenzi or accidental may not be immediately clear to the reader.

In terms of style, Chidavaenzi makes effective use of flashbacks and these tend to illuminate his characters’ past mistakes. This also helps arm them to deal with future eventualities.

Chidavaenzi is a journalist, anointed teacher of the Word and author with a passion for teaching and ministering healing to the sick. A born-again Christian, Phillip was born on January 16, 1980 in Chitungwiza and is married to Simba-Lyn. Chidavaenzi’s debut novel, The Haunted Trail, won the Nama award in 2007.

This review was first published in The Daily News (Zimbabwe) edition of June 1, 2015.

Chidavaenzi details women’s suffering

 BY VIMBAI BERITAH CHINEMBIRI

THE beauty of wearing spectacles is that your tears can be misinterpreted as a case of sore eyes. I cried while deeply engrossed in Phillip Chidavaenzi’s debut novel, The Haunted Trail (Longman, 2007) while travelling to Matabeleland South recently.

Chidavaenzi has mastered the art of storytelling which allows the reader to experience strong emotions such as tears inspired by overt excitement, and tears stemming from a sea of sadness. He tears down stereotypes and shows the importance of detail in storytelling.

The novel is set at a time in Zimbabwe when most people believed being HIV-positive was a death sentence. Stigma and discrimination was a lifestyle, and infected individuals and their immediate families had experienced more death than wellness.

This book is outstanding in its depiction of women. Chidavaenzi refuses to depict women as failures; rather in their diverse characters, he manages to show important aspects of womanhood in a positive light.

The women we meet include Chiedza, a well-mannered, University-educated and disciplined young woman who is impregnated and infected with HIV by her fiancé, Michael. Chiedza’s mother Fungai is a lawyer, and her sister, Itai, a journalist. Her best friend Jackie is training to be a lawyer. She has slept with several men (including Michael) but because her parents have died of HIV-related illnesses, she always makes sure she uses condoms. Michael’s mother, Stella, is a ‘shebeen queen’ who is abandoned by her teenage son. She also succumbs to HIV.

When Chiedza tells Michael that she has been diagnosed with HIV, he dumps her, abandoning their unborn son and accuses her of sleeping around. This part of the book explains why some Zimbabwean women have gone on anti-retroviral therapy in secret. Revealing your HIV status often has dire consequences.

Chiedza has been ‘schooled’ in respectability but this does not make her immune to the virus. The author shows that infection has nothing to do with what you were taught or where you came from. In Jackie, he makes readers understand that it is not the number of sexual partners, but safety that matters. In Stella we know that every woman has a story that shapes the choices she makes in her life.

Itai struggles to depict gender balance in her stories for the newspaper she works for. She is told to drop the angle on the role of patriarchal systems in fuelling the spread of HIV and instead cover how prostitutes defeat attempts to stop its spread. This is an all- too familiar narrative of how women are the face of HIV in Zimbabwe.

Chidavaenzi pays attention to the details of women’s suffering in the novel but goes on to show their resilience and pro-activity in dealing with it all: Chiedza reveals her status despite the stigma thrown her way, her mother defiantly loses her job because of Chiedza’s publicised HIV status and Jackie remains a pillar of strength for her friend.

Why This Book Matters

The book is ground-breaking in that it is written by a man; a man whose stance on HIV borders on feminism and seeks to give power to women. It is a book that should inspire change in individuals regardless of gender.

This is a book of hope for the infected and affected. Its focus on several infected women is representative of the reality that more women are infected than men. It targets the patriarchal systems that have made methods of intervention futile. It seeks to demystify HIV and de-moralise infection.

In a recent workshop I attended, Sidney Montana from the Centre for Sexualities Aids and Gender at the University of Pretoria said gender inequality was a critical and key component in fighting HIV. It has the power to equip women with the ability to negotiate for safe sex and take ownership of their health if infected like the women in The Haunted Trail.

Reflection on this book matters because the deadline of the Millennium Development Goals is looming and giving way to the Post 2015 Development Agenda. With this in mind, the rates of new HIV infections should be examined broadly.

This book matters because Zimbabwe is one of the countries with a very high HIV rate of infection. There is a need for radical policy shifts to get away from policies that fuel the type of stigma which Chiedza’s mother faced and the stigma some employees in Zimbabwe have been subjected to.

Like the journalist in the novel, writers are being challenged to create narratives that do not dis-empower individuals leading to a triumph of illness. Chidavaenzi reinforces the importance of wellness at an emotional level which ultimately blossoms to the physical. It is a book worth reading over and over again.

Chidavaenzi is a journalist and a pastor. He recently published a sequel to The Haunted Trail tilted The Ties that Bind, a book I hope to lay my hands on soon. My biggest hope is that this new book continues Chidavaenzi’s depiction of women as people in a position of control or making their way there.

 – http://herzimbabwe.co.zw/2015/07/book-review-the-haunted-trail/

Vimbai is passionate about education, gender equality, ending child marriage and sexual and reproductive health. She is a hopeless romantic and addicted to books and laughter. Vimbai blogs at vimbaimandiri.wordpress.com

Pragmatism, Prostitution and Morality in The Haunted Trail

Phillip Kundeni Chidavaenzi with Pastor Evan Mawarire

Here is an in-depth review of Phillip Kundeni Chidavaenzi’s The Haunted Trail and Virginia Phiri’s Highway Queen done by Theresia Mdlongwa. It was published in the International Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Studies Volume 2, Issue 12, December 2015. Click the link to enjoy: http://www.ijrhss.org/pdf/v2-i12/3.pdf