"What Maiguru said was bewildering, bewildering and offending. I had not expected my cousins to have changed, certainly not so radically, simply because they had been away for a while. Besides, Shona was our language. What did people mean when they forgot it?" (Dangarembga 42) .
Paul H. Lorenz states in his article Anorexia and the Experience of Colonization in Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions that in the short time that they have been away, her cousins" identities had changed into something impossible for Tambu to understand. She cannot imagine being out of touch with traditions, especially such an important one as language. Not only is Tambudzai upset with her cousins, but she is equally upset and disapproving of her own brother Nhamo, who appears for a short period of time and disowns his family and their life almost entirely in the name of his "missionary" education. The sad irony of it all is that it is all too soon that Tambu herself begins to make choices that lead her further away from her roots and the identity of which she is so fiercely defensive.
Janice E. Hill in her article called Purging a plate full of colonial history: The 'Nervous Conditions' of silent girls talks about how Tambudzai leaves her homestead and gets a "white man's education" at the mission, while living with her uncle. From there she moves on to study at an even more "English" school, "the Young Ladies College of The Sacred Heart" (Dangarembga 186). When her cousin Nyasha surrenders to an eating disorder (anorexia), Tambu having no choice, returns home, disturbed and confused. Her mother's reason for Nyasha's illness is too much "Englishness" and it is clear that she does not see the fault as being limited to Nyasha.
She went on like this for quite awhile, going on about how you couldn't expect the ancestors to stomach so much Englishness. She didn't mention Nhamo, but I was beginning to follow her trend of thought.