The Sunday News
Bruce Ndlovu, Sunday Life Correspondent
WHEN Kundaimidzo “Kundai” Shamuyarira heard that he had got the job as Skyz Metro’s Ndebele newsreader, after sailing through as one of the 16 selected presenters from a field of over 500 applicants, he was worried that his name and surname would be a turn-off for prejudiced listeners.
Despite the station’s insistence that it would cater to all listeners regardless of language, some listeners were expecting the station to have a strong Ndebele bias given that it was Bulawayo’s first and at that time only radio station.
“When I first arrived I was really worried that people would be turned off by my name. I mean, I’m called Kundaimidzo Shamuyarira and I would be working at Skyz Metro which is called Esabantu.
“That really affected me. However, the people like our CEO and station manager calmed me down and told me not to worry about anything. They were really a pillar of strength when I was nervous about my role and with time everyone seemed to have warmed up to me,” Kundai said in an interview.
The poet-cum-newscaster acknowledges that he is indeed an anomaly, even in a metropolitan city like Bulawayo where many are equally adept at English, Ndebele and Shona, three of the most commonly spoken languages.
However, Kundai is more than a mere competent speaker of the Ndebele language. On his tongue, the language becomes a thing of sublime beauty, with the clicks that some find hard to navigate proving easy and smooth terrain for a man that was raised by his grandmother.
Single-handedly, Kundai has injected life and zest into Skyz Metro’s Ndebele bulletins, giving it an edge over rival stations that have always put English on a higher pedestal than indigenous languages.
But how did a man born in Chegutu 25 years ago become such a master of the Ndebele language?
“I was raised by my grandmother. I came to Bulawayo when I was six years old I don’t have a strong recollection of what happened in my early years in Chegutu. My grandmother was a very cultured woman and so was her sister who I continued living with after she passed away.
“In their home, Ndebele was spoken fluently as it was meant to be spoken. The language to them was not meant to be corrupted and doing so was frowned upon. It was in such an environment that I learnt to love and cherish the Ndebele language,” said Kundai.
Although he now finds himself in a radio station on a daily basis Kundai, who was educated at Barham Green and Senzangakhona primary schools, believes his first love was theatre and poetry. These are the two passions that he nurtured while he was at Emganwini Secondary School and Nyahuni Adventist when he briefly moved to Harare in 2010.
“I joined the school choir when I was in primary school and I also took part in plays and other artistic activities. However, it was while I was at Emganwini that I started to pursue my dream of being an actor. I directed plays and acted in them and it was during that time when I was an actor that I realised that there’s a poet in me,” he said.
His prowess as a poet and love of words inspired some to suggest that perhaps he could excel on radio. He took their advice seriously and went for the Skyz Metro auditions, where his grandmother’s love of the Ndebele language came to his rescue as he tried to separate himself from a field of over 500 hopefuls.
“I wasn’t a qualified journalist so I was really intimidated looking at everyone around me because most of them had better qualifications. So I thought long and hard about what would make me stand out and I thought that I would add a few elements that make the Ndebele language unique. Since everyone seems to be abandoning our languages, this made me stand out,” he said.
After securing the job, Kundai was to face another challenge — how to read news in Shona.
“When the CEO Mr Qhubani Moyo told me I would have to read news in Shona I was really shaken because my Shona was terrible. It was really hard for me in the first few days but I was lucky that the people who taught me Shona did so in a way that is suitable for news reading. I’m still pretty bad at speaking the language but I have less difficulty when reading the news. I also read the news in English on Sundays,” Kundai said.
Unlike his peers, Kundai is determined to embrace his culture and not turn away from it.
“I’m getting paid for embracing my culture. Most people are lost and they end up prioritising English, which is sad. I never thought I would meet someone like Pathisa Nyathi who called the station and wanted to meet me after he heard me on radio. All of this happened in my life because of my love of the Ndebele language,” he said.
