Nervous Conditions

“The river, the trees, the fruit and the fields. This was how it was in the beginning. This is how I remember it in my earliest memories, but it did not stay like that.”

In the process of developing the setting, the author introduces colonialism and its impacts on the landscape. Tambu has fond memories of her surroundings when she was a young child, but when colonial government institutions took over in her area, the conditions for her, her family, and the other Indigenous individuals deteriorated.

“Thinking about it, feeling the injustice of it, this is how I came to dislike my brother, and not only my brother, my father, my mother—in fact everybody.”

Tambu resents her patriarchal culture, and, in the process, she grows to dislike most of the people in her life, including her immediate family members. She is jealous of Nhamo, whose education and desires are prioritized over hers because she is a woman, and she dislikes those who support the patriarchy, such as her mother and father.

“This business of womanhood is a heavy burden. […] How could it not be? Aren’t we the ones who bear children? When it is like that you can’t just decide today I want to do this, tomorrow I want to do that, the next day I want to be educated! When there are sacrifices to be made, you are the one who has to make them.”

Ma’Shingayi tries to prepare Tambu for life in a patriarchal culture. Her comments demonstrate that she does not have hope for an egalitarian life for either herself or her daughter. She resents her forced gender role and feels disappointed. Rather than hurting Tambu, Ma’Shingayi hopes to prevent her daughter from experiencing the disappointment of failed aspirations.