TAMBU- Prompt 2

Tambu’s main goal is to go to the mission to gain an education and she is afforded that opportunity by moving in with Babamukuru. She is so focused on gaining formal education to better herself that she does not know about the social education that she will gain. This particular situation of the story alludes to Cinderella. Tambu imagines just as Cinderella did to leave the peasant life behind for a ‘glamorous’ lifestyle and better conditions. Tambu is descriptive in her appearance. It is almost like she is bitter when describing herself. “You could see it from the way the keratin had reacted by thickening and, having thickened, had hardened and cracked so that the dirt ground its way in but could not be washed out. It was evident from the corrugated black callouses on my knees, the scales on my skin that were due to lack of oil, the short, dull tufts of malnourished hair.”(58) By moving with Babamukuru, she knew she was going to be a refined woman and she felt she would not regress. I also thought it was interesting because she was determined to be the role model for her younger sisters. The formal education and social education she learned would be the means she needed her sisters to observe. “As for my sisters…They were watching me climb into Babamukuru’s car to be whisked away to limitless horizons. It was up to them to learn the important lesson that circumstances were not immutable, no burden so binding that it could not be dropped. The honour for teaching them this emancipating lesson was mine”(58) Tambu is very prideful of her “emancipation” because she not only wants to lead her family but she wants to show her sisters another way of life. Concluding, Tambu will be well-lettered by moving in with Babamukuru. Tambu’s first social lesson is the décor of the house and she says that she should pay attention so that she will know how to decorate her own home one day. Tambu is like a sponge soaking in the many new traditions and order of life that is different from her homestead.