Shona by Gary N. van Wyk F

I read this book because Nhamo in Girl Named Disaster was from the Shona tribe in Mozambique. I wanted to understand her culture better. This book helped me with that. I learned that "the Shona make up about 75 % of Zimbabwe's population" 9 (the country Nhamo was traveling to). In A Girl Named Disaster, Nhamo has to worry about the wet and dry season in terms of being able to get to her destination. We usually think of seasons in terms of temperature and the form of recreation we can do or cannot do based on what season it is. There they have to worry about the wet and dry seasons for totally different reasons. For instance, cattle is their most important commodity and is a status symbol for their favor with the gods. If the wet season is too long and wet, the Shona have to worry about the attack of the tsetse flies to that can be fatal to cattle. If the dry season is too long, they have to worry about their animals not having enough food or water to stay healthy. These problems has forced the Shona to "practice transhumance, the seasonal movement of the herds to make the most of the seasons and different environments." 13
A chart on 16 about the kinds of spirits they believe in would have been helpful. I also learned about the Great Zimbabwe, which I had never heard of before.An international trade insert on page 39 would have been a nice supplement to our social studies discussion.