Samu Zulu
SABC newsreader Alyce Chavunduka is descended from a family Zimbabweans talk about, whose academic achievements are lauded.
So is Mark Chavunduka, the 34-year-old editor of the Harare-based Standard Newspaper. He received worldwide support when Zimbabwe military police arrested and tortured him in January following the publication of an article on an alleged foiled coup.
The Chavunduka dynasty begins with David Wanhuwana, whose second name means “four people” in Shona.
A polygamist, Wanhuwana had two sons from each of his wives – Solomon and Percival Chavunduka. Solomon Chavunduka produced two famous sons, Gordon and Dexter, and another, Percival, who fathered Sarah.
When Solomon Chavunduka settled in Manicaland’s Dowa Purchase Area near Marondera in the mid-1920s, Mishek Cheneka, chief librarian of the Bulawayo-based Chronicle Newspaper, lived next door. He recalls: “Solomon Chavunduka later served as a reverend at the St Augustine Mission in Manicaland near Mutare, where Gordon [Alyce’s father]and Dexter [Mark’s father] were educated before they went to university.”
Professor Gordon Chavunduka became one of Zimbabwe’s most renowned social scientists and worked at the University of Zimbabwe for 37 years, where he was dean of the faculty of social studies (the first black person to hold that post) and vice-chancellor by the time he retired in 1996.
Dexter Chavunduka was Zimbabwe’s first black veterinary surgeon. Sarah Chavunduka was Zimbabwe’s first black woman to get a university degree. She became the first female chair of Zimbabwe’s five government- owned newspapers: The Herald, The Chronicle, Sunday News, Sunday Mail and Manica Post.
Sarah Chavunduka’s Malawian husband became the first black ambassador to South Africa during PW Botha’s rule. Their eldest daughter Chipo was enrolled at a whites- only school, and she hit international headlines.
Alyce Chavunduka, born in Harare 30 years ago, was a 12-year-old pupil when the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) recruited her as the country’s youngest presenter of children’s radio programmes.
“I grew up faster than my peers [because] I was earning an income at such a young age. At the end of each month, I had a reasonable amount of money in my pocket,” she says.
Chavunduka first worked in South Africa for Radio 702, but left after a brief stint. On January 2 1992, she became the first black woman presenter of Good Morning South Africa.
“I wasn’t just black,” says Chavunduka, “I was also quite young [about 23], which generated a lot of interest. I know many people wanted to see how I would fare, but I was very confident because I had so much experience.” In February 1992, she became South Africa’s first black woman newscaster on SABC’s TV1 alongside veterans like Jane Hicks and Anand Naidoo.
Chavunduka does not speak English like most Zimbabweans. “My father and mother [Rachel, who is principal of a college in Harare] were always making me and my brothers and sisters aware of how we spoke. I guess it is because I come from an academic family. I am always conscious of my listeners and viewers and, in the process, I strive for clarity and perfection.”
Says James Ndlovu, a comedian based in Bulawayo: “If the Chavundukas lived in the olden days when people stood in great awe of geniuses, a guard would follow them wherever they go and beat a drum so that passers-by could stand aside.”