Advisory Committee Chair
Kerry Madden-Lunsford
Advisory Committee Members
James Braziel
Jaclyn Wells
Document Type
Thesis
Date of Award
2022
Degree Name by School
Master of Arts (MA) College of Arts and Sciences
Abstract
Crazy Town Stories focuses on the themes of strife, pain, perseverance, and faith. The memoir focuses on my childhood in a town called Epworth, one of the worst towns in Zimbabwe. Epworth was a town of compromises. We couldn’t afford decent food, so we ate whatever we could as long as it filled our stomachs. We couldn’t afford to finish up the house we lived in, so we had to live in a house with no flooring, doors, and a ceiling. Since we had to make all the compromises, the town had a habit of changing people. It took people’s dreams and chewed them up because everywhere we looked, the town was screaming at us that we would not make it out of Epworth. That our fates had been settled, we were worthless, and nothing good was to ever come out of that wretched place. These changes are seen in our neighbors and everyone we interacted with daily. They all made questionable decisions, and it is easy to judge them from a distance, but when one considers the circumstances they were in, one will realize that these people lived in a place that didn’t offer them a lot of choices. Along with everything happening in the town, there is also a nationwide crisis as a backdrop. We dealt with political turmoil, economic instability, and a corrupt government. All of this added to our plight. We were already a town full of miseries, and having a national crisis seemed to cement the idea that we were never going to leave Epworth. The story focuses on my family and how we tried to navigate Epworth without iv losing our belief that we were meant for better things, and without giving up on the idea that we would one day leave for a better place.
Recommended Citation
Nyahasha, Tawanda, "Crazy Town Stories" (2022). All ETDs from UAB. 601.
https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/etd-collection/601