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Her name is familiar in Zimbabwe and beyond. She is one of the few women who have made her mark in a field that like almost everything else has been dominated by men.
Mutirowafanza, Ziva Kwawakabva, Mvengemvenge and Music Box are familiar names for those who were old enough to watch ZBC in the eighties and early nineties, before DStv and Wiztech took over the country’s airwaves. The name Dorothy Meck appeared on the credits of all those programmes as a producer.
She feels that one person who really got her hooked on film was director/producer Remious Musasa who trained her. “I was an assistant producer to him and he showed me the ropes. He was a mine of knowledge because he would go to Hollywood and work there then come back and pass on the skills. He also taught me the need to keep on going for refresher courses because new things come up all the time,” she eulogises.
Dorothy then went into independent production and established her own company, Afrovision. She produced the internationally acclaimed Tanyaradzwa and the Chipo’s Story for the Soul City Regional Untold Stories programme. “Chipo’s Story was one of the two chosen out of the lot of nine for the American Film Festival.”
Although she appears very young, Dorothy Meck is in her forties. She was born at Morgenster Mission in Masvingo province. She is married to Alfred and they have three daughters, Tafadzwa, Tashinga and Tania. Her speech still bears a trace of her Karanga roots and when I rib her on that she asks me which corner I hail from, but I refuse to be drawn and I inform her that I only ever think of myself as being Zimbabwean.
Because she believes that women have an important role to play in their personal lives and in the society at large, Dorothy is walking the talk on empowerment. She is involved in a programme in which she is helping to develop entrepreneurial skills in other women. “I think it is important as women that we shake off the label and mentality of being informal operators and we establish proper businesses.”
Another woman who is touched by the plight of children, Meck does some social work with the Harare Children’s Home where she teaches some of the children about music. She was instrumental in the procurement of laptops that the kids are now using to learn how to actually create music.
On the guiding principle of her life, Dorothy preaches the gospel of putting one’s back into the job. “When I was growing up we did not have much, and life was always an uphill struggle. I think that is how I got the belief that I should always work hard to ensure that my children do not go through the same problems.”
The same sentiment is echoed in the lessons that she hopes her daughters have learnt from her. “They should not depend on anyone. That is the legacy that I want to leave to my daughters. They should always work hard for what they want and they should also believe in themselves, nothing is ever impossible.”
I notice that she seems to be wearing no make up at all and I ask if she is making a statement on women being sexual objects or something like that. She denies this with a laugh and her reply brings out a universal truth that almost every woman in the world is familiar with; there are never enough hours in the day!
“I have nothing against makeup; it’s just that I just never seem to have the time to do more than just put on a foundation. I really admire women whose make-up is immaculate and would not want to show the world a badly done face, so I usually just go without.”
Just as well that this woman believes in earning a decent living by working real hard, or else her hobby could lead to some serious brushes with the law. She says, “I love shopping for my family. I get so caught up as I look around that no one wants to go shopping with me. In the Netherlands my mates crowned me the Mayor of Hilversum. I discovered all these hidden gems and I would tell everyone where to get what and they would wonder how I knew about all those places.”
And she is just another sister who has fallen into the fatal female trap; she suffers from the all-too-familiar obsession. “Shoes, definitely shoes. I just can’t help getting yet another pair,” she confesses with another laugh.
She favours no particular clothes designer and buys whatever catches her fancy. On perfumes, she just goes for the subtle variety. “I like scents that are very delicate, nothing that will turn heads.”
She tells me that her food of choice is, “traditional Zimbabwean soul food like nyimo, you know. I really love sadza nemuriwo une dovi.” I assure her that if that is what she stocks, I, for one would not be a frequent visitor to her home as I readily admit that I have been colonised by the East and their spices.
I ask her what she would grab from the house if it was burning down and she shrugs her shoulders and thinks for a while. “I would make sure that everyone was safe first and just grab whatever I can without endangering myself. All material things can be replaced, maybe not with the exact same thing, but life cannot be recouped from anywhere.”
To close our interview, I ask what she would define as the real differentiating thing between the sexes beyond the physical aspect and she takes an obvious item and puts it in way that is makes me look at it differently. “The pain of childbirth tempers a woman into a human being who is responsible from all angles of life. A woman will bend over backwards to achieve something in a situation that most men would give up on.”
BY PACIFIC NDORO
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