A Portrait of Elizabeth: Shona Farmer from Zimbabwe

by Geoffrey Clarfield (December 2012)

She managed to finish seven years at the Howard Primary school and she speaks basic English well. She remembers that she liked to learn but had to stop because there was not enough money for school fees. She tells us that to go to school she would wake up at four, while the stars were still out. She would help her mother prepare breakfast for the younger children and depending on the time of year, she would also work the fields. Then she would walk to school. She fondly remembers that period of life.

By two thousand and four Elizabeth had a partner. She soon discovered that she was pregnant. During a routine visit to the local mission hospital she discovered that she would be having twin boys. The only problem was that they would be born conjoined, what we used to call Siamese twins. When her partner heard the news he disappeared, leaving her to her fate. As they were not officially married there was nothing any authority, either civil or religious could do. Such is the nature of individual freedoms in a developing African country where traditional communal solidarity is weakened by social change.

When Shona women suspect a birth abnormality they often deliver at home and then decide to let the child die or, help it live. In the past, all albinos were left to die as were one of any two twins. One twin would be put in a traditional pot near the river and left until it was sure that he or she had passed on. Elizabeth could not give birth at home and so was taken to the local missionary hospital. There she gave birth to two boys named Tinotenda and Tinashe.

Geoffrey Clarfield is an anthropologist at large.

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