Stains on My Khanga

Sandra Aikaruwa Mushi (Goodreads Author)

3.90 · Rating details · 20 ratings · 4 reviews

A second anthology of short stories and poems by Tanzanian author Sandra Aikaruwa Mushi. This collection of poems and short stories will have you laughing and crying. In each piece you will be able to connect to a woman you have come across in the journey of life. It is written honestly and manages to balance an allure of innocence with the harsh realities of knowledge and ...more

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Paperback, 1, 149 pages

Published October 2014 by Hadithi Media

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Apr 02, 2015 Lena Azami rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

The following review was taken from my goodreads blog. In case anyone missed it, I'm posting here.
***
I originally wanted to read a Kenyan author. I say Kenyan because two days ago I stood before a world map, closed my eyes, and pointed my pen at a random country. Whatever country it is I’ll read a book coming from it. And it turned out Kenya.
The quest for some exotic, different book resumed on Wikipedia. There, I found a list of Kenyan writers. After typing a couple of names on Am The following review was taken from my goodreads blog. In case anyone missed it, I'm posting here.
***
I originally wanted to read a Kenyan author. I say Kenyan because two days ago I stood before a world map, closed my eyes, and pointed my pen at a random country. Whatever country it is I’ll read a book coming from it. And it turned out Kenya.
The quest for some exotic, different book resumed on Wikipedia. There, I found a list of Kenyan writers. After typing a couple of names on Amazon without success, I moved to the next name, Felix Mnthali. Instead of Felix Mnthali, I found Luso Mnthali, the editor of Stains on My Khanga, which is an anthology written by Sandra Aikaruwa Mushi—a Tanzanian writer.
Hmm…Tanzania?
Stains on My Khanga diverted my search; it sounded like a very interesting title: beautiful but sad, perhaps uneasy, and that uneasiness stems from Stains and Khanga, which to me are like oxymoron.
If Khanga—traditional African, bright, colorful, richly patterned garment—evokes warm suns, fertile lands, never-ending savannas, and a cultural heritage stretching back to the Australopithecus genus, stains, on the other hand, conjures up blood.
But why do stains have to be associated with blood? Maybe it is water, oil, chili pepper, guacamole, tomato sauce…Following this nonsense question, I decided to give it a try: it’s only 140 pages and on kindle unlimited.
Now, the book isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s an anthology of poems and short stories about domestic violence, corruption, exploitation, and the desire to break free from them. Most of the women portrayed in the short stories are helpless, foolish, and victims of abuse; however, some of the poems balance with the stories in that the readers are face to face with a strong and resilient voice. The voice denounces corruption, admonishes the perpetrators of crimes against women (rape, abuse, violence, slavery…), and asserts her human rights.
A memorable story from Stains on My Khanga would be Bride Price. Readers are presented with the notion that when a man pays a dowry to the family of his bride-to-be, he is buying the woman so that she becomes his property. This notion is also present in These Stupid Women, where the father grumbles about how stupid his daughters are because they haven’t find husbands, who will bring “Bride Money.”
Here, one is left wondering what is wrong with this world. A real man with a speck of pride and dignity in his heart would never be the pimp of his daughters—a.k.a his own lineage. In this anthology however, male characters firmly believe that women are helpless and useless creatures who cannot live without the opposite sex providing for them. Furthermore, women should accept being beaten and beaten for ridiculous reasons—not to mention they should not complain about their husbands having not one but many affairs. So, back to Bride Price, how can one explain to a man brought up in a similar environment that dowry should be a gift to his bride-to-be (or let’s even say to her family), a token of love and good intention, not a price paid to crush a human being’s dignity and freedom.
Moving on, I see My worth as people endorsing goods coming from the West; the goods come from countries championing human rights, yet ironically these goods perpetuate men and women’s backward lifestyle (cell phones, alcohol, hotel rooms…). To what extent these imported goods have altered the social and economic life in Africa, I’m not sure.
On the other hand, My blackness highlights the diversity of the continent and—if I’m not wrong—celebrates African women. It’s a moment of respite within the anthology and has something of comforting, like a pitch-dark sky studded with glints of hope.
Sometimes, and I say sometimes, this book reads as if Africa (or more accurately Bantu-speaking countries) is a big messy village of women turned into prostitutes and dead-drunk, illiterate men beating their wives and seeking mistresses. It is by no mean the case, just as there is not a single book, or work of any kind, that can aggregate a continent or even a nation into one you-name-it category. In one of the stories, a woman asks a countryman to wash her car. The man had left his village lured by hopes of making a fortune working in the city. In another story, a rich woman and her politician husband exploit their maid. This goes to show that not all women are oppressed.
All in all, Stains on My Khanga is the voice given to silent faces marred by violence (faces you will meet all over the world not just in Africa). It recounts daily suffering but also tells about hope and resilience.

About the author: Sandra Mushi lives in Dar es Salaam and is a trained interior architecture designer.
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Oct 31, 2014 Sandra Aikaruwa rated it it was amazing · (Review from the author)

It is a book that makes you stop, think and question yourself and life ... "does it ... would I ... can I ... should it ..."

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Jun 05, 2018 Neelam Babul rated it it was amazing

A wonderful collection of poems and short stories all revolving around women, their dreams and ambitions and how their lives are affected by the actions of those around them. Within the pages of the book, you will relate to the dreams the characters have and also understand how much women endure in their daily lives. I can still feel my mind and soul reacting to the words I read. This book went beyond the expectations I had for the book and it tops my list of favourite books.

I was intrigued and ...more

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Aug 04, 2019 J Thayre rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: women-writing-book-project

Two of Cecil’s Tanzanian, female colleagues recommended this book as my Tanzanian entry for my book project and it didn’t disappoint.

Read more of this review here: https://aroundtheworldonefemalenoveli...

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