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love trickled to the community and his work place.
According to Joyce Kadandara the first born child of the family, she grew up a free bird, they had little supervision.
They knew from an early age what community participation was because of the way they grew up.
“my father was an exceptional man who was way before his time, when we were growing you don’t sort of appreciate some of the things that were done in the family. we were six girls and two boys and I happen to be the first one by the way.
“I think daddy was a man with a lot of love and care beyond the ordinary to everybody not only to his family.”
He was also a loving husband. A visionary who was ahead of his time; I am talking about Phillip Mbofana.
His children have wonderful memories of their father. A father who did not discriminate his children because of their gender.
He gave all his children the education, which he saw as his children’s passport to life.
“I think that kind of thinking has given us as the Mbofana family some platform to take off in our own way, and when he was sick he called us and said, ‘I don’t leave you many worldly goods but what I gave in education should see you through’.”
And I think that’s what most families should be looking because if we had worldly goods maybe we would have been very frivolous and spend it all.
But because we were given something that you own for life, education goes with you.
“You’ll take it with you but it also contributes to the benefit, not only of you and your immediate family but to others,” said Joyce Kadandara, who was one of the first nurses to be trained in the country in 1959, at Harare Central Hospital.
Eunice Pfende asserts what her sister Joyce said: “Well, all I can tell you is, I don’t think at that time and even now, there are many fathers like that, with that vision!
“Girls in my family are empowered, and that’s exactly what he did, he used to tell us I remember when we came home.
“I remember when I went to Goromonzi to do my form one, my sister Philia Garwe was also there, so he would call us when he received our reports even the ones in primary school we brought him, and he always said ‘your reports are an indication of how you are doing but I want to tell you if you don’t work hard in this world you won’t succeed, but I also want to tell you that God gave you a brain, a mouth, eyes, legs, hands, feet and ears.
“God has already equipped you for the job of looking after yourself and helping your fellow man and hence he said you should never allow somebody else to turn you into a doormat, you should refuse to be down-trodden, and you must never, never go hungry because you have been equipped by God to be able to use what he has given you for your own benefit and the benefit of others.”
Phillip Mbofana also loved his wife, whom he married not because he wanted to be looked after like some do, but she was his partner, companion and friend.
He showed affection openly to his wife, whom he kissed publicly, he was full of love. He would every weekend without fail make sure that he spoiled his wife.
“I think you know the other thing I need to tell you about my father which as I said he was ahead of his time, no married man would wake up on a Sunday to make breakfast for his wife in bed, do they?
“So my father used to say ‘amai looks after you every week, she does everything in this house getting ready, for you and me to go to school, I go to work,’ most of us were going to school, you know there was a difference of two years in between, so Sunday was mummy’s day off. Yes, so he would say mommy you don’t wake up,” remembers Joyce.
In some families it is the mother or the girl child who works up early to see that every member of the family is comfortable and they have all that is needed before they go to school or work.
Eunice remembers how her father would help in house chores and not burden the girls and their mother.
“He treated us the same, more than the same. I’ll give you an example of getting up in the morning, we had the dhonga stoves. What are they called? Dze-charcoal, and my mother would want us to get up early in the morning to make fire, boil the water and so on, but for as long as I remember when we got up my father would have already done that, so he would do that for us.”
Phillip Mbofana also spent quality time with his family by doing simple things like going for picnic and eat out with his children.
Sometimes they did not go far from home but would enjoy quality time with his family. “I remember we used to go to the airport, then very few blacks did that and we would go to the balcony, my father said well, ‘I want you to grow up knowing what is in this world, planes take people far away and I’m sure one day you would all fly’,” said Eunice.
Growing up in an organised family like theirs was a blessing.
“You cannot run your own job, it doesn’t matter what it is, if you were disorganised in the family you have a reference point you know.
“When you grow up, be it in school, your first job, your marriage, you have a reference point, what would my father do, how would I react, what is it really that is the issue here, you try to reflect on this little circle that you grew in,” Joyce explained on how the way one is brought up can impact on their behavior.
The Mbofana family is known for how they have contributed in the media or communication industry and they owe this to communication as a family, over the table, listening to many people, going to church.
They were socialised to be open in church. They started off in Sunday school and as they grew up they participated in a lot of activities, women’s associations and church itself. Communication skills develop a child, because they are not hampered, they are encouraged and they also look at role models.
Mbofana was always communicating in public, there was nothing new about it, they just looked up and there was their father. Their mother was a musician, she sang in church choir so they looked up to their parents who where communicators.
Phillip Mbofana also taught his children to ask questions and get the right answer rather than just accepting everything that everybody says although many people are not very comfortable with that.
He created in his children the confidence to articulate one’s mind.
“I think one of the issues we need to discuss openly in Zimbabwe is the socialisation process. That’s not all; we are denying that element of human rights. So to me when I reflect in my father this was something that was very precious.
“He is a father whose love, was given freely and it makes you human, it makes you who you are and the relationship between any father and any child and especially daughters is very precious,” Joyce narrates.
She continues: “And one thing he used to do for me was to encourage me to read, my mother would say ‘Baba Joyi muri kuda kuti mwana azoita sei kana azoroorwa’, I used to be an advent reader. He would say ‘My dear, information is part of growing up.’
“So we used to sit and read all the papers, he would bring all the papers, whatever paper there was and he would say ‘read what article you understand, if you don’t understand come and ask.’
“So I would go into our bedroom which we shared with my sisters because you we had a big family and I would be sitting and amai would say ‘ko kitchen nhai mwanangu,’ no, my dad would say ‘No let my daughter read,’ and as a first born I think my mother wanted me to have a good role”.
Eunice describes how his father loved her, “He was the kind of father who would show you love you. when I got married and living in Bulawayo where my husband and I were teaching at Luveve – coming to Harare to visit and then going back, he would take me to the train, as the train pulled out he would have tears in his eyes. My mother would say didn’t you want them to get married.
But he was a loving father, he loved us very much and when you grow up knowing that you are loved especially by a man it really helps you to develop and it empowers you because a father plays an important role in ensuring especially in our society.”
Many benefited from the Mbofana family in the media industry from Phillip Mbofana, Joyce, Godwin, Eunice, Tino, Wellington and Comfort.
When my mother worked for the Daily News in the 50s, it was Mbofana who encouraged her not to give up on her career and he was like a father to her.
It was Godwin Mbofana who introduced me to radio journalism when he realised the amount of research that I had carried out on township music he was also one of my informants as he grew up in Mbara, he guided me as a father.
It was also Tino Chikara who gave me support when I was producing the documentary on township music at her workplace.
My sister Josephine has wonderful memories of Godwin Mbofana whose fatherly love when she worked for Radio 4, helped to see her through the trials and tribulations that young women journalists are sometimes faced with.
The Mbofana family has brought joy, happiness to many people through their communication skills.
A wonderful father who passed on his communication skills to his children and many other people Phillip Mbofana will always be remembered, during father’s day and always.
According to Dzino when his father Phillip passed away many people came to pay their last respects and even long after his death.
They tried to be there and even long after his death, their Highfield home was full of people that came to pay their respects for the man that had helped them one way or the other to better their lives not only in journalism, but just in the ordinary, he touched so many souls and the same went for their mother.
We wish all fathers a belated fathers’ day, particularly those who have treated or raised the girl child as a human being and affording her equal opportunities.
Let me take this moment to thank and wish my late father David Jenje (Murehwa) a happy father’s day, it is because of him that I talk of township music today through the stories he told me of how he grew up in Mbare, Ndinotenda.
A belated happy fathers’ day!
Joyce Jenje-Makwenda is a researcher, archivist, author, producer and freelance journalist. She can be contacted on: joyce.jenje@ gmail.com