The Sunday News
Charles Dube
TODAY we come across Clopas’ hilarious letters to his newly found love, Shamiso. Remember Clopas was struck by Shamiso’s beauty at his work place.
There followed a long courtship made interesting by Clopas’ letters. As earlier indicated Clopas’ letters are in Shonglish (a mixture of Shona and English). Analysts (now) refer to them as classic love letters.
When learners go through these love letters at the back of their minds they should be comparing and contrasting courtship as it was practised traditionally and how it is done now.
When they do this they would be looking at, the use of letters and their contents, the “Shonglish”, the idioms, sentence structures, (mis)spellings. All this adds fun which is necessary in the study of drama.
There is a lot of fun when learners read Clopas’ letters.
To enjoy the letters learners should pay a blind eye to the misspelt words and ingest the contents.
There is a lot of meaning and feeling expressed by Clopas in the letters. Traditionally since there were no modern forms of communication, people used letters to pass messages.
Clopas gets the opportunity to ask for Shamiso’s address in order to communicate with her when she has gone back home.
Letters were also very reliable like modern forms of communication, the only disadvantage is that at times they took long to reach their destination.
But the message was never distorted. Some writers or poets went on to write praise songs or poems about the ability of letters to bravely send message even to the most secured homes.
Shamiso is excited to get a letter from Clopas. Getting back a bit, can we say the gesture of Shamiso scribbling her address on a piece of paper and giving it to Clopas was a sign of accepting Clopas’ proposal? Perhaps only time will tell.
We are told that she reads the letter with an appropriate voice, tone, gestures, mood, and pronunciation.
All these show that Clopas might get a positive response. She would not show all these emotions if she was uninterested in what Clopas was saying. In the letters Clopas is candid as he pours out his feelings towards Shamiso.
He makes it clear that he loves Shamiso very, very much. He says the day he set his eyes on Shamiso at his work place, he knew he had found a pretty wife. He says Shamiso is the prettiest girl he has ever met.
He adds that she is prettier than the word pretty.
We should not forget that most of these words are (mis)spelt, though the message goes out strongly to Shamiso. Clopas is strong struck by Shamiso’s beauty and does not believe that he will ever come across more beauty than that.
Follow the idioms he uses to describe Shamiso’s beauty: Using a simile he likens Shamiso’s skin to muchipisi fruit. In correct Grammar he says her skin is like a peach fruit.
Using a simile he again likens Shamiso’s eyes to black diamonds. He uses a metaphor where he says her lips are maroro meaning they are appetising to the viewer.
Traditionally there was a semblance of respect because Clopas tells Shamiso that he could not express his love towards her the other day when he met her because he thought her sister was her mother and he did not want her to think he was too forward or wanted to rush things.
Clopas would not declare his love in front of a woman who would turn out to be his mother-in-law in future.
This is one of the differences between traditional courtship and modern day dating or courtship. Clopas makes it clear since now Shamiso knows about his feelings, he pleads with her to reply to his letters as he cannot sleep at night thinking of her.
He repeats that he wants to marry her and call her, “Mrs Clopas Wandai! Tichafa.
He comes to a close of his letter with “Yours in hope, Clopas Wandai J Tichafa.” All this shows Clopas’ determination to marry Shamiso. He is hopeful Shamiso will respond positively to his proposal.
This letter makes Shamiso laugh uncontrollably, attracting the attention of her sister who immediately comes in asking her what is funny.
When Shamiso’s sister learns that the fun is from Clopas, the man at the district commissioner’s office, who wants to Shamiso, she snatches it from her and scans it.
After getting that Clopas wants to marry Shamiso she says to her, “But you are too young.” Shamiso is confused and asks from her what she can do about it.
When asked by her sister whether she wants him, the young Shamiso dreamily says she does not know. She is definitely young and confused.
Traditionally a man would not talk of marriage in the first letter to a girlfriend as deduced from Shamiso’s speech.
“What a queer man! Saying that in the very first letter!” Shamiso is excited as she hugs the letter from Clopas, more so that he works at the district commissioner’s office. In that excitement Shamiso asks what she shall tell him from her sister.
Following traditional practice, Shamiso’s sister advises her to wait and not write to Clopas yet.
A young woman was advised not to rush and accept marriage proposals from any suitor for fear of being taken as a woman of loose morals. This is the reason why Shamiso’s sister advises her to wait. “Less haste, for they stumble that run fast.”
Despite Clopas’ desperation for Shamiso’s reply, he has to wait. Traditional women would not just fall for sweet words from letters.
When Shamiso is reading the second letter from Clopas with the same attitude as before, with appropriate voice, tone, gestures, pronunciation, her sister is listening, reacting appropriately, laughing and gasping.
She laughs at what Clopas is saying, who appears in dreamland and gasps when Clopas bursts into funny expressions. For example, Clopas is already calling Shamiso his dearest darling before he gets Shamiso’s response.
However, this should not surprise us because Clopas had already been struck by Shamiso’s beauty and hoped for love.
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