TRIALS AND TRIUMPHS IN ADVERSITY

About the Book

This book of reminiscences charts the life of a young man Kamturugudu (short Kamtu), growing up in an African township during the Rhodesian era. It chronicles a journey that spans his formative years from primary school through to his secondary school years. It gives some insight into the Rhodesian primary and secondary school education systems then, and the challenges faced by the youngster as he tried to make sense of a school disciplinary system that often bordered on physical abuse. The chronicles of Kamtu’s childhood adventures and conflicts make one wonder how he came through it all without any emotional scars.

In his early teens, bemused by the contradiction between ancestral worship and Christianity, he asks poignant questions regarding the oxymoron that was the coexistence of the two beliefs within his family, and as a result, conflict with his mother, siblings, and cousins was an inevitable eventuality. A brief escape to the shores of England provided a temporary reprieve from the stress and anxiety triggered by his appointment to the role of a spirit medium, but on his return to Zimbabwe, the traditional cloth which had been assigned to him as the emblem of his supposedly ‘elevated status’ was awaiting him. In his quest for answers and a means of escape, he stumbles into a ‘tent’ church meeting and witnesses a logic-defying event that changes his life forever . . .

About the Author

Stanley Augustine Vambe was born in Harare in June 1962, the eighth-born in a family of ten children. His parents separated before he had reached the age of ten, and though his father maintained contact with his family, Stanley did not get to know him intimately. His mother, a perfect model for the ten children, vehemently instilled in him all the social norms and values that were embraced by the stratum of society where she belonged.