Uhuru Huu Ni Kitu cha Ajabu

"This freedom is a funny thing..." (from Zora Neale Hurston's 1939 novel: Moses, Man of the Mountain)

KISWAHILI

“Musa alisimama na kuwashukuru wote kwa wema sana. Lakini aliendelea kusema kwamba hakuwa na uhakika kwamba watu wanapaswa kuwa na Wafalme hata kidogo. Ni vigumu sana kupata mwanamume ambaye hangedhoofika chini ya mkazo wa nguvu na kuwa mkubwa sana na mbabe. Yeye mwenyewe anaweza asiwe bora kuliko mtu mwingine yeyote kama angepata nafasi. Kwa hiyo bora waiache biashara hii ya Mfalme ipumzike kwa muda. ‘Uhuru huu ni kitu cha ajabu,’ aliwaambia. ‘Sio kitu cha kudumu kama miamba na vilima. Ni kama mana; inabidi uendelee kuikusanya safi kila siku. Usipofanya hivyo, siku moja utakuta huna tena.’”*

- Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) kutoka riwaya yake Moses, Man of the Mountain (1939)

ENGLISH TRANSLATION

“Moses stood up and thanked everybody very kindly. But he went on to say that he wasn’t sure that people ought to have Kings at all. It’s pretty hard to find a man who wouldn’t weaken under the strain of power and get biggity and overbearing. He himself might not be any better than nobody else if he had the chance. So they better let this King business rest for a while. ‘This freedom is a funny thing,’ he told them. ‘It ain’t something permanent like rocks and hills. It’s like manna; you just got to keep on gathering it fresh every day. If you don’t, one day you’re going to find you ain’t got none no more.’”*

- Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) from her novel Moses, Man of the Mountain (1939)

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Kuhusu (About):

KISWAHILI

Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) alikuwa Mmarekani aliyekuwa mwanaanthropolojia, mchunguzi wa hekaya za umma, na mwandishi aliyehusishwa na Mwamko wa Harlem. Wasifu yake pia ni hapa.

* Riwaya ya Zora Neale Hurston, Moses, Man of the Mountain (1939), inasimulia hadithi ya Kutoka (Exodus) ya Biblia kama sambamba na safari ya muda mrefu ya Waamerika Weusi wenyewe kuelekea uraia nchini Marekani. Hurston aliandika Moses hutumia istilahi na nahau za lahaja ya Wamarekani Weusi wa wakati huo.

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ENGLISH TRANSLATION

Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) was an American anthropologist, folklorist, and writer associated with the Harlem Renaissance. She is also profiled here.

* Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Moses, Man of the Mountain (1939), retells the Bible’s Exodus story as a parallel to Black Americans’ own protracted odyssey toward citizenship in the United States. She wrote Moses in Black American terms and idioms of the dialect of the day.

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KISWAHILI: Asante na tutaonana tena,

Mmerikani

ENGLISH TRANSLATION: Thank you and may we see each other again,

Mmerikani

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Chanzo (source): Hurston, Zora Neale. Moses, Man of the People. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991, page 268 (originally published in 1939 by J.B. Lippincott, renewed by John C. and Joel Hurston in 1967; the Afterword, Selected bibliography, and Chronology are by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. in 1990; the Foreword is by Deborah E. McDowell in 1991 (the Foreword alone is worth reading!); and digitized by Internet Archive in 2015). Retrieved on June 17, 2023 from https://archive.org/details/mosesmanofmounta00hurs_0/page/268/mode/1up?q=manna.

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