By Farayi Mungoshi

JUST when you think hunhu/ubuntu is a thing of the past and that we have all forgotten our ethnic morals and values, you are reminded there is hope yet — and where else to get this lesson but at a funeral back in the village!
When my uncle, William Mungoshi, passed on a couple of weeks ago, I found myself on a bus full of relatives, some of whom I could hardly recognise, others I could not remember and yet some I had never met before.
We were on our way to Chivhu to bury babamukuru.
In the African culture, it is embarrassing not to know one’s relatives.
There were the young ones who would repeatedly refer to me as mukoma.
And of course there was that other group, the one you know is related to you but you can never really get to know how you are related regardless of the number of times you are introduced to them.
But what you do clearly remember is that they always ask for money for a beer or cigarettes whenever we gather.
That is family.
But what was so different about babamukuru’s funeral was that there were certain faces missing, mostly from the older generation.
And these were the people we would normally rely on to carry out certain duties at all family funerals.
I suddenly found myself being called on to assist with the funeral programme and I didn’t know what to do.
In the past, I would hide and let others (older than me) carry out the duties required, but this time there was nobody to hide or stand behind.
What was I to do now!
The reality of it all was that I realised I am no longer that young man anymore.
The button stick concerning family matters was being passed down from the older generation to the younger generation but sadly we, as the younger generation, still know nothing about how to do these things.
And what made it worse was the fact that most of the funerals I have attended were held in the urban areas and they are run differently.
I am not saying we ought to attend more funerals in the rural areas but whether we like it or not, the truth is, we do not visit each other anymore like we used to as Zimbabweans.
We either meet at funerals or weddings – and that in itself is not enough time to catch up or learn the ways of our people.
For a person living in the UK/US with his/her children, it is even worse.
While some of us have managed to teach our children Shona, there are other things concerning hunhu hwedu that you learn by association.
Here I was being asked to take care of something I did not even know, but I was being asked to assist because I was the right person to do it, together with a muzukuru.
Now this is where it gets interesting; after I started assisting, another elderly person came up to me and asked why I was performing the duty of vazukuru.
I sat back and laughed to myself, questioning whether there are still elderly people left in the family or in Zimbabwe who really know how to do things the proper way anymore.
Most of us have been in the city so long we are now lost; worse off are the younger generation being brought up in the Diaspora.
After family members and the sahwiras had spoken at the funeral, the councilor, sabhuku and chief were also given a chance to speak.
This is something that is not done in the city.
And as I listened, I realised the chief was also crying out for lost culture and unhu among his people.
His message was not so different from that of a father as it leaned more on the preservation of our unhu and land more than anything else and I felt here was a message meant for every Zimbabwean, especially in the face of family disintegration.
How many fathers or mothers still tell their children to dress decently and how to carry themselves around other people in a way that shows dignity and respect?
The culture that has taken over is the culture we see on television and as such, even our children do not really know how to behave anymore.
We need to remember that the divide and rule strategy employed by the former colonisers was created in order to displace us, not just physically and mentally, but spiritually as well.
The Christian religion was used to cut us off from our ancestors to such an extent that some of us actually now think our ancestors were evil.
Some of us moved to the city during the war to look for jobs, but would return to the village every month bearing gifts and groceries for those at home, while others joined the liberation struggle.
Years later, due to the economic struggles and the land reform issues, some left the country and now stay in Europe, Asia, South Africa and the US, among others.
Nobody really goes back to the village anymore.
The older generation that stayed in the village during the war days is no more and it’s now up to us to take over.
But how many of us really want to, after having tasted city life?
When Chief Nyoka stood up to talk at my uncle’s funeral, he reminded us of the value of family and how we are a part of this soil.
Whether in the UK, the US or Asia, one is still a part of this soil.