On Becoming a Guinea Fowl

 Do it again, but good. 

Recently I listened to an interview with director Rungano Nyoni regarding her On Becoming a Guinea Fowl. She said something that caught my ear and made me think about my own complicated bond with my parents. She said “our mothers are trying to protect us from a world we refuse to inherit.” For context, this was in relation to her heritage, with which she admits to having a complicated relationship to. In her movie, Shula, played by Susan Chardy, is a young Zambian woman who discovers her Uncle Fred’s fresh corpse in the middle of the road while driving home from a costume party. She calls her father who tells her to stay put until the authorities arrive, and asks her to wire money so he can procure a cab, which he doesn’t do. Her cousin Nsana (Elizabeth Chisela) joins her, by coincidence, and it’s abundantly clear that neither will be shedding a tear for the deceased. As Shula’s aunts and mother arrive at her house the following day in preparation for the funeral, tensions between Fred’s sisters and his young wife and her family boil over; his house, money, and possessions are now up for grabs. When their cousin Bupe (Ester Singini) is hospitalized due to an overdose, a cell phone confession reveals that Uncle Fred is in fact a serial rapist and a pedophile. Soon it’s made clear that Fred’s sisters were aware of their brother’s sickness and none of them lifted a finger to prevent it, quite the opposite in fact. Tale as old as humans. Sadly, it carries on today and it points to many long-established cultural/systemic blockades that allow for such ruin to slither on.

In the interview, Nyoni spoke also about code switching, in her case being a Zambian woman raised mostly in Wales and the tug of war therein. She describes her Welsh heritage as one of social distance, while citing her Zambian roots as a culture of “tethering.” She said that her soul is drawn to the tethered and that it’s an ongoing struggle to learn how to work together to find common ground with patriarchal traditions, those that would allow for the type of atrocities described here, holding them back. You can sense this in her movie, there is a grace that doesn’t shy away from petulance. Shula, perhaps by instinct, is similarly careful to not let her anger spill over, and yet her respect for her elders and their traditions is never conflated with genuflection or weakness. There is a scene where she is frantically looking for someone while being stopped repeatedly by men asking for her to fetch them a plate of food. She obliges the men, just as she obliges the wishes of her aunts, not because she is a spineless pushover or a moral sellout, but because she's walking that fine line between blowing it all up and building a better future. You can see the wheels spinning, she's a woman of action but not an impulsive one. She knows that the youth will be better served with her mind not her anger, though anger has its place in the assembly of the future. It’s a juxtaposition that I find hard to fathom and to put into daily practice. How do we work together towards a better future, when we don’t agree on what that future entails? 

I’ll admit that I struggle to find the right balance, and while it's tempting to scoff at zealous youth, I think sometimes the answer lies between. When our elders stubbornly cling to tradition, or get led astray by a false prophet, are we beholden to guide them the way they once guided us? Nyoni ends her film on a grace note, albeit an incensed one. Earlier we learn that Nyoni associated her trauma at the hands of her uncle with a children's television show episode about the titular African savanna bird. We learn that the fowl is known for its alarm call to alert prey to the presence of a predator. As the elder men gather to decide whom the spoils will be acquired, chaos erupts at the incitement of Fred's sisters. Injustice prevails, and Fred's widow and her children are banished from their home. Beyond the fighting we see Chala, Nsana, Bupe, and Fred's children (conceived when their mother was only 11) sounding the alarm. Chala's face is no longer impassive. This is not the future we chose to inherit.

--- side note: a group of guinea fowls are called "a confusion"