Wednesday, December 27, 2006

\merry Merry Christmas and the very best to everyone in 07....thank you for sending me such wonderful messages, missing family and friends at this time..even on a Safari..which is 'journey' in Swahili..five days lurching, jerking, bumping, and cruising through the most beautiful country imaginable down dirt mud roads weaving between fields of a sea of green grass, lions lying by the side of the road swishing their tales in leisure, slowly turning their heads when we appear...they don't go after Land Rovers or Cruisers..but if anyone as much as clicks their door to get out, they stand immediately, for the kill.....giraffe's my favourite, i had no idea how graceful, elegant they are, tall moving slowly through the forest, usually with four of five, chewing on upper trees, their markings blending in with the bark of some trees. and on to the cheetahs, most interesting, small, the size of a bulky lab dog, alert, erect, on guard, always watching, stalking an antelope, a gizelle, something through the tall grasses, they often work in teams, fascinating to watch...Zebras running or grazing in herds of hundreds...some alongside the stampede of Wildebeests, millions of them migrating south at this time, racing, running, bolting from our car as we weave our way through them, the zebra alongside to alert for danger..always the predators, always the lions to watch out for....elephants lumbering in families of four to ten across plains deep down the 2000 foot descent from the rim of NgoraNgora lurching and picking our way through onto the floor of the crater itself where these animals live wildly and peacefully, flamingos, a wide strip of pink seen from a distance looking like a long sandy beach...the one rhino, very rare, there are only 12 left here, after poachers massacred with guns before Tanzania and Kenya realized the merit in conservation of parks and their inhabitants. tho interestingly there are still hunters lead by the Bush family from Texas who come regularily to parts of these parks donating large sums of money to keep their hobbies intact, shooting with a guide close at hand the buffalos who fall when first hit to the ground, playing possum until the hunter comes close to celebrate his kill..then jump up and retaliate terribly I am told....Christmas eve for me was in a small blue puptent my sleeping head inches from a huge downfall of rain and cold, very cold....on the top of the NGORANgora Crater...and on to the Serengeti, which means wide neverending plane..hours and hours of beasts, running in herds,ambling by themselves..our first elephant dashed out the forest as if being chased by something only a short distance from our car, its ears wide and fierce - i was shocked, so stunned i didn't jump up and take a picture, wondering if we were to be stampeded over....he stood there motionless for a good fifteen seconds then dashed back into the bushes, huge and magestic, remaining always this way in the picures of my mind....

Talked to my kids last night from a house without electricity a faulting flashlight shining dimly onto a handful of phone cards scratched with the code of blessed converstion with these who i miss so much at this time....being on safari, and being so far away, remembering the places and people i have known here..heartbreaking messages from one of babiesout there with nothing to eat, no milk left - messages of despair....messages of hope too, of love, of peace, of joy..lots of time to remember, remember xmas' past...loved ones...out here so far away from everyone so familiar to my life, another world...wondering what can be done...someone heard Steven Lewis on tv the other night, imagining him up for a Nobel Peace prize...here people have remarked\; "he knows more about us than we know ourselves!!" and these people working in the field...

I prefer being a worker here..than a tourist...will be glad to see the new year in, with another village to work in....to greet Lindsey on the 11th, who will give workshops herself in acting, improv, translated in Swahili..so looking forward to her visit...and then on to into the middle of Kenya for a few weeks before coming home...again, i am blessed to have this opportunity, cannot thank ICA Canada for giving me this experience, this journey....

be well everyone..i wish you the very best for 07..and look forward to seeing you at home...one minute to go on this machine..\happy new year!!

Thursday, December 21, 2006

continued...from post below...the lights just flickered and i thought i'd lost that whole piece! whew! so this woman talked of collapsing onto the floor and going to the hospital when she was told of her son's successful exam results...no money, she with positive testing...desperately in need for her son, for school fees, uniform and exercise books..all of which will cost $65. US..where can she get this kind of money? it never ends..never..I help out, and also to Mwajabu a few days before, I pushed $10,000 shillings into her hand, so hopelessly did i feel her situation....only to have her return the next day for more money....Digna asked "where did you put the money yesterday, it is a lot, what did you do with it!"...well, it was explained, that when a young girl gets her first menstral period, she stays in her house until it finishes, and then in new clothing and shoes she reenters the world as a woman..it is a very important passage here...Well, Mwajabu's daughter had gotten her period, and had stayed inside the house for the last three months! She couldn't come out, couldn't go to school, couldn't be with her friends, because they had no money for new clothing and shoes....so, the $10,000 I had given her yesterday, went towards the girl and her ritual coming out...not for nutricious food desperately needed for Mwajabu and the rest of her family...it is never enough.whatever we give, it is never enough, ever...if we give for food, there is soap needed, rent, school fees, everything...so money may not be the answer to improvingthelives of so many..we discussed sustainable donations..
WE thought of organizing a family or a group of people with a few chickens, (raising eggs and more chickens)...or goats for the milk and more goats....this way a project could be started which with their working at it, would grow..much better than a few dollars here and there, spent today and gone tomorrow...

Also, there are no candle makers up in Handeni....does anyone out there know how to make candles? there are bees here, therefore honey and wax, but candles have to be brought in from Dar es Salaam...six hours away..what a great thought to have people make their own and sell them as a small business..these are the kinds of things which are more important, for the to become self sufficient....

It is raining hard out there....wish me luck tomorrow in a tent with raging wind and rain, celebrating xmas with a glass of wine or two and thinking so much of all of you...hugs, the best to you..will be back on this machine on the 27th..have a great day....xxme..

PS...the Bible i was bringing for the Masai...Moses and Isaic wanted very badly a Masai bible, not the one published in Nairobi .which they didn't trust.Theywanted one published in Canada...well anything coming out of Canada wouldn't be in Swahili...for sure..so we settled with something published anywhere BUT Nairobi, Digna and I toRC church in Handeni and bought one published in Italy, I was so excited to present it to them Monday...but alas they were no where to be found....I'll be working in Mtwambu all January near Arusha, where Isaic comes from, so the hunt continues....
again...be well...
Yes!Yes!yes! it works...thrilled! so much to say, and want to wish you all the best of the season; there is no resemblance of Christmas here, but for a few billboards advertising beer with green and red bows slung around the neck of the bottle, Santa loitering mistly in the background, that's it..heard Silver Bells in the market this morning admidst huge piles of gnarled bananas and pineapples tumbling off the back of a truck but that's all..i'm leaving tomorrow on safari, camping in tents with lions and giraffes and people i don't know, a different way to spend xmas if you can't be with family and friends....

MOnday..with high expectations,heading out of Handeni for the Masai circumcision celebration, me with a new red Bible in my bag, foralmost two hours, in the front seat, MWAJABU SAIDI the terribly sick woman, positive with HIV i mentioned meeting the other day, gaunt, arms thin as pipes, weak, with 6 kids at home, her husband running off and marrying another, picking our way through cattle path scrubby meadows, pit holes, to the small cluster of Masai mud and thatched huts, admidst goats and cows and thousands of flies only to discover that the ceremony I was so excited about, with 150,000 magnificent Masai, wouldbe happening not today, but on Wednesday as we were told..spirits down, slugged silently all the way back to World Vision. The important thing now was to find a medicine person and get help for Mwajabu, despondent and hungry by now. WV provided eggs and pancakes with tea, and by 'luck' we ran into the husband of the main Masai medicine woman in the district, who was in the next village visiting....hopped back into the World Vision landrover, our taxi driver lying in the back of his car his feet hanging out the window, refusing another wild goose chase...found his wife Rehema - huge, warm smiling welcoming, and jerked our way back another half hour to her mud hut enclave in the middle of nowhere - our group sitting on animal skins while Rehema took Mwajabu aroundtheback of the cow coral for an examination....the Masai don't think HIV/AIDS..they look at symptoms: in this case, Rehema declared liver, lungs and stomach...and sure in ever way she could treat her...it would take two full days and nights with her staying in the mud hut with Rehema, her husband and 7 childrentwo of whom were nursing all the while we were there..Mwajabu agreed....I must say i would have had second thoughts, but she was determined I guess.
We paid the Masai equivalent of $30 Canadian (a lot of money here) for medicine, treatment, food and bus rides to and from Handeni for Mwajabu, the husband and Rehema, who assured me that she would be up and running in ten days, and that was that!
So Imdying to hear what comes from this..imagine, if she gets healed and becomes better...then what!
I left for Moshi the next day on a busride i won't forget, the seat i am sharing to hold three people, held two hugely wide girthed women with two standing kids when i arrived, wedging my own self into the aisle seat - every seat taken with standing room only, people standing jammed in all the way to the back, and on my other side a man holding a live chicken flapping in my face, fortunately not for the whole ride, six hours later we pulled into Moshi town, where Doris, the Tanzania director for ICA met me, my three big bags wrapped in plastic to discourage dust and the goat wedged into the baggage area under the truck, from peeing...and over to Doris' lovely home to rest for a few hours. She is wonderful, heading up the many ICA projects in Tanzania: HV AIDS education and voluntary testing, home care, water projects, orphan care, children's rights workshops....we talked into the night.
I'd been depressed the night before i leaving Handeni...so many incredible people and experiences, my time with Digna, her two sons....everyone i met and those i was trying to help, some dropping by our house, asking, pleading for help: one whose son had just passed his entrance examinations from primary to secondary school, a very bright boy, whose mother collapsed

Saturday, December 16, 2006

Sunday morning - ecstatically ensconced in the private computer quarters of the Handeni secondary school..five beautiful machines humming along without virus..the only malfunction might be that before I get a chance to publish this post the electricity might be turned off by whomever..boy would i love to meet whomever sometime!
Yesterday Ben my translator and I were driven to a Traditional Healing Ceremony in a forest about 10 k away on top of a high hill overlooking Handeni..with about 150 people all ages, dancing, drums, singing..the chairman of the group which has 508 members throughout Tanzania is the spirit medium...in the middle of a wide circle he tore off his shirt and went into a trance like state, girating and throwing his arms in the air..he beckoned us to follow him down into a glade where we watched him rush into a circle of trees, fall down onto his knees and tear out a rather large tree (about 6 inches in diametre) from its roots, grunting and growling like a lion all the time...after deforesting several more made his way back into the circle, dragging behind him these trees, more dancing and singing and welcoming of the spirits...finishing with thank you speeches all around...it was magical and unforgettable....This group would like to eventually connect with healers and traditional doctors in Canada who create herbs and powders from nature. They showed us bottles of substances which cure stomach, teeth, malaria, hiv - everything..i actually took two doses of a brown/green powder last week with tea while I was in the throws of a fever and head cold...overnight, with great uncomfortable sweating, my symptoms passed....the next day feeling all better...
If anyone out there has any connections with traditionalhealers in Canada,pleaselet me know..it will be awhile to set up, as they need translation from SWahili and email service...

Tomorrow. Monday, we travel back to Sindeni, as guests of the Masai we spent time with last week during the art workshop with batik artists in the area..(and four small babies being nursed by their mothers while holding a paint brush and working with their other hand)..there will be a ceremony of circumcision to honour young men who will become warriors after their healing...i am told many Masai will travel from near and far for this event, nationally, it is very important and happens only every 15 years or so with the tribes...we will be taking a woman with us who was tested positive with HIV AIDS just last week. she is a mother of 6, has no friends she says,no support system. her children are looking after her..we have been trying to help her with food, sugar, cooking oil, vegetables, soap....but as I have always said, there is never enough...in our conversations laST WEEK...Masai talked of cures...I know they have one for Malaria..it is very powerful, and taken after the circumcision ceremony, when the warriors spend time in the bush healing...so powerful that they cannot see or hear for hours, they are filled with huge energy, anger toward the disease...when it is finished - this medicine..they are immune from malaria...
They talk of having the same,which works with HIV AIDS....so my thinking is to bring this woman to their ceremony, work with their traditional healers, spiritual men, and hopefully be offered the same medicines for her....it is just a hope...you never know...but in this magical world of miracles and strange happenings..why not?
We are trying to arrange transportation today..
We will travel back to the World Vision centre I worked in last week...if it all works out, the Masai will meet us there at 10 am and take us to the gathering...there will be drumming..a cow being roasted..the blood from its jugular being mixed with its milk - a treat for Masai warriors, not me.
Tuesday am early around 5:30 i leave for Moshi....with my three huge bags filled with diminishing art supplies and my basket of bottles with paint. It is always a procedure i look forward to with trepidation. A few days in Moshi..then to a safari over xmas and new years...will try to get onto this blog but could be out of touch in a tent somewhere.....reminding me of a new years with LIndsey in the the dunes of southern Morocco deserts with camel lowing....sounding like old men and women at a cocktail party....
The best to you...again..in this season and into next year...
xxL

Friday, December 15, 2006

OK...continued..from the first post! boy i am sorry for complaining...you just can't believe how fortunate we are with our communication system at home....just had a message that the blogger connection had failed..may not post that first message..but amazingly it did 0 so \i am lucky this time...!
Back to Sindeni...the bar...a Masai man comes in..we greet him joyfully and he sits down...talking for an hour before we have to get back to the World Vision centre for dinner....he is as fascinated to talk to me about Canada too, with questions, thoughts, ideas as i am with him....he agrees to visit us tomorrow after the workshop...and does, with a friend..there they sat, resplendent in their red and blue checked robes, drapped over them, the Masai stick they carry with them always, tall, slim.. waiting under a tree..we join them and talk, for another three hours, walk down to another drinking spot, dark, long passageway of concrete, old, chickens walking around, people in doorways, old pots, pans....till we are led to a small private room..two chairs, coffee table and a couch, plaster peeling, dim lighting, Safari beers around, deep conversation....they ask about Canada..the snow, how the cows are living there. Masai culture is centred around cows, the more they have the richer they are...these men had 400 and 350 respectively...they paid 15 cows to their future father in law to marry their wife...each had only one wife...six and five children.. they dont consider themselves wealthy, there is another \masai with over 2000 cows...so everytime they asked me how much things cost, \i could answer by the number of cows it would take, each cow costing about 300 US.
We talked of birthing, death...religion, they asked me to find them a 'Masai\ Bible...which turned out to be one written in Swahili...but not published in Nairobi, as they don't trust the authenticity of that one. Of course i will find them one...next week in Moisi if not here in Handeni...we talked about the after life, Christian, they believe in Heaven...i spoke of Buddism, of reincarnation, their eyes grew wide, the idea of coming back as another person, or as an animal, oh that was a new concept! We talked about marriage, divorce...they could not for the life of them imagine divorcing...they have paid 15 cows for her, why would they leave her!...they could marry another. and have two wives, or more..many wives are needed to bear many children as well, if you have many cows..I did hold court for an hour or so talking of Canada and our ways....they were fascinated...would love to visit, but not with the snow and cold...how elegant and resplendant they are in their own land, \i talked of our First Nation people....their history, what the white man has done to them, how they are now, most having lost their culture, how good it is to see how they so deeply keep theirs...on and on....medicines, spirts...
\On Monday they invited us to join them at a huge Masai gathering, a circumcision ceremony where the young men will move into being Warriors responsible for looking after their community...drums, roasting of cows, dancing, etc...of course we will come back...
Have spent a lot of time with the HIV Aids people here, have done a number of interviews and met a lot of people..talking..one woman came in, who is terribly thin, her arms like pipes, the bones of her chest sticking out..she had just been tested and is positive, six children, two still at home, no means to survive, no place to stay, no food....no friends...we hooked her up with the organization here and have been trying to help...but no matter what you give it is never enough..ever, and once you begin it is heart wrenching, so much is needed, where to begin and what to do..i have no answers...it is endless, so you start in a little area and try to make something a bit better there...and go on...but it is endless here. endless....at both workshops we talked alot about prevention, about condoms, education is so needed here....most people in the rural areas where i have been have bits of information but some of which is just wrong....the numbers are so high, many are hidden due to the stigma and discrimination...people believing in witchcraft, the sick being bewitched.....so in need of the basic facts...
ICA and World Vision are working full out here - it is great to see first hand where donations go....up in Sindeni i saw people taking the weight and height of kids who were being sponsored by people in Switzerland, those pictures and letters giving information about families and kids here actually is true...also working on orphans..it cost $60 US to keep one child in secondary school for a year, that includes school fees, uniforms, pencils, etc....if we could just collect enough money for 200 kids it would make such a huge difference..and it is so little for us...let me know if anyone is interested in that project!

Miss you all, coming back bumping along yesterday they were playing Christmas carols on the radio...it was hard to hear them....there is nothing here that reminds me that it is Christmas...except watching the calendar every few days and knowing it is coming soon...
MERRY XMAS...and Best season wishes to you....!!
This is my first xmas ever away....from my wonderful family..and friends....oh how i will miss you so...and dear Sierra, and the babies...there were four women with babies the same age as Finn and Pyper at the workshop, painting and nursing all at the same time..so cute, sitting up, on the concrete floor, with 27 participants painting and drawing around them, a plastic water bottle rolling around as their only toy...
I am leaving \Handeni Tuesday at 5:30 am on a bus to Moishi....to stay with Doris our Tanzania director for a few days, and then taking a safari into the jungles of Tanzania over xmas and new years..then...LINDSEY!! is coming to Arusha in January for a few weeks!!...i am so thrilled she is able to make the journey....there will be theatre people, actors, writers who she can connect with and work with if she likes..planning to go up to the crater at NgoraNgora for a few days at the end of her stay....imagine!
So many more things to say...but anxious to post this one before it disappears!
Again, best holiday wishes to you all...
HUGS....L
People in Africa never complain, it is true!
Me, I am learning patience, but man...it has taken me nine days to get onto a computer which I pray today, works!! Either virus..where you write a good long story, answer emails, etc..and you get PAGE ERROR...or, worse still you walk over an hour to get up to this Internet Cafe..and the electricity is off..this happens a lot...Today, and excuse me for complaining.....it takes me 3-4 hour to get here, soaking with persperation, hot, humid, but hey, i made it..we've been away over the last three days with no access..more about that in a minute..i sit down, turn the machine on. and for five minutes i am deleriously happy....it is humming along...and then the electricity goes.,...i should be wishing you all a very wonderful season, merry Christmas....and i do..but in a minute...it disbelief i force my woes upon the gentleman sitting next to me who is a pastor, he is very sorry...he arranges for me to buy two litres of fuel and they will turn on the generator next door and run a cable through to this machine..oh my gawd..but what an idea..!
So it takes another hour and a half, without bothering you as to why, but here i am..the first machine i tried had a virus over the last hour, so i am switching to this and we are ready to go..
So this is why i haven't written, anyone..sorry..and thank you for your emails..and concern.....
Where to begin..Christmas...it is hard to believe, so hot here 32 last week..and humid...Have given two two day workshops, art workshops...one in Handeni last week, the other up in Sindeni..which is about 36 kil of rocking and rolling roadways, cows, goats, the usual huge gutted holes, rambling and jerking along, that workhshop sponsored by World Vision...it was fabulous..of course, everyday here is wonderful, different, interesting, deep, memorable....I travelled with Benson who works in the ICA office, a dear man who was maimed by a motorcycle 7 years ago, whose heart is huge, who missed the Handeni workshop...and Ben age 20 who is the son of Eunice who works in the office as well...he is hugely funny, interesting and speaks English wonderfully, which is a godsend for me..everything here must be translated for me...so wish i could speak Swahili...!! and in Zimbabwe it was Shona...but English was spoken there fluently by everyone so that was easier..where was i!
After day one of the workshop, Ben, Benson and \i walked a few kil to town for a refreshing Tanzanian beer...settled into a dark drinking place, many people gathered outside in the dark, fires burning, roasting pieces of goat, beef...

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

MASAI land....Sunday,we set off,Elke and I early..in her huge four wheeled Toyota truck venturing along the usual pilled holed gutted red/orange dirt road pathways 18 kil. east of Handeni...our landmark was a big hole on the left side of the road and a change of colour from red to off white,beige...we turned left onto a grass path for a few minutes and stopped the truck. Masai children poured out of mud huts and forests, as iffromeverytwhere followed by their mothers beautiful resplendent in white beaded necklaces with silver circles dangling off metal chains...as the humidity of Tanzania hit me like a wall when i first arrived,here the FLIES, swung and swirled around us,humming and buzzing incessantly landing on mouths, eyes, cheeks, into hair, arms legs..clothing, everywhere..there is no relief. Flies that follow the cattle, and the Masai have hundreds of cows and goats,hence dung and flies..millions of them...think flies. We brough a large container of sweets, Elke has been here once before...and promised. three elder Masai men appeared dressed in the colours of the tribe, wrapped in royal blue cloth, magenta,maroon, resplendant,tall, slim,lanky, highcheekboned, each carrying a longstick, never without it...used in ancient times to fend off lions and tigers...nowadays used to move goats and cows from one hill to the next...
The Warriors were away....these being boys and men from age 13 onto about 35, away in the hills with said cows thankfully, I shuddered to imagine the fly fest if they had been here....
WE were honoured guests...following our hosts with children alongside,to nearby hills being made ready by hand and sweat for the planting of maise..to mud huts made from sticks and twigs, with cow dung dried with mud mixed with leaves. metal corregated roofs atop..windowless....mud floors..bedroom areas, for men, and for women and children....They were excited by my picture taking..children and adults alike each one laughing and joyful to see the result of each snap...it occured to me that many of whom had never seen themselves before as they don't use mirrors....
We are taken into their newly built Catholic church....again made of mud, dung, wood sticks...white washedinside....a lineof windows opening along the top, the church about 10 feet high...an alter of cement at the front, awooden cross with Christ, pewsmade of logs at either end a plank of ancient wood slung across six inches from the ground for sitting...an aise down the middle,rows for maybe 80 people...
the three men at the front, the women and children in the pews. babies wrapped around their backs..toddlers naked wandering and weaving amongst their mothers and children...
Hymns sung gloriously and enthusiastically, by women and children...the Bible being read by the chief elder...a sermon, songs,hymns....stunning...a Harry Potter notebook on the alter along with a metal dish for offerings...i will never forget this moment of my life..but again,for also the flies now imprisoned in the beautiful sparce little hurch,humming and buzzing and landing....i know now how little use i would be in a torture chamber...flies crawling into my watchband, under the leather straps of my shoes,my mouth when trying to sing...my eyes......i began to try to think of each landing as sweet little kisses brushing my skin....changing the meaning and thrilled to be a part of such a ceremony with such beautiful people...
After church we were led by the men into the dark mud hut for tea and a meal....much to our amazement the flies did not follow...cool,clean, we were treated to a chai of herbs, cardimum bark...with fresh goatmilk...and a rice pudding...
elke has learned Swahili forher job..immensely interestingconversatin..questionsanswers, great feelingamongst the three Masaimen...and two white women from beyond...
Of course,they need assistance,
I promised to help as much as I could...
ICA is getting a bank account for the Masai...so once again next week i will be sending out information in case anyone out there might be interested in taking this on....
we bid fairwell after lunch....promptly got our right hand front tire mired into a gully and had to run back for assistance....fortunately a big bright busload of guys came along with the Masai men..and in a minute we were out and running again...

So being here, it is a mixture...of meeting many people ...working, assisting as much as I can,learning, absorbing..reading...trying to understand... an experience i will never ever forget....everyone from ICA CANADA...I thank you for this magical opportunity....Iam honoured and blessed to be part of such a wonderful group.... thank you....
Wednesday am...second posting..
I described yesterday some of the life stories i have beenhearing over the last two days in our office..meetings one on two, with Eunice translating - with positive members of the Handeni HIV/AIDS Positive Organization...
Imet them first last week in their office...recording the following in my notes:
"From 4 to 75, in a circle, all but two women, with babies wrapped onto backs, oldand young, a tiny sick girl, aged four in pink organiza,nestled in the arms of her grandmother, warm,open, worn faces, each one beseaching with their eyes,pleading for some one out there to help them...skin and bones, weak long limbs the children crying softly, they are hungry i am told...
WE do a meditation - it is the first time it is greeted with gails of laughter. Eunice is translating...i amconfused...there has been conversation during our eyes closed, feet planted strongly on the floor, hands on knees ,palms upward...breathing in through the nose I tell them, hold it..all the while imagining and thinking of good health, joy, lush green lands, and happy things....hen breathing out through the mouth....the bad things,the sickness, the misery, the thingswhich make us un happy in our lives....the laughter continues....
the grandmother, an open engaging humourous woman, has declared with the good stuff, how can weimaginegoodthings when we arepositive? when we havenothinggood in our lives..it is a sort of joking with each other...
but wry....ajoking, but true...
but i always amtrying tofind the positivethings..i talk about their group, howintheir illnessthey have found the support andloveof each other, andalso obviously the comeradery..i amseeingnow...they doagree...this group of declared Positive people....forging like pioneers defying the stigma of the disease, rampant through out this community and all over Africa....
WE agree to meet at the ICA offices in a few days...

So Monday and Tuesday....we have met andspoken onen one with 8 people...each one braving to telltheir livfe stories...their marriages with businessmenoftenwith up to five wives...watching the others becomeillanddiemysteriously backk then with such dehabilitating circumstances,the husband nolonger working,sinking quickly into poverty, scrounging, forcing themselves to make jewellery, continue their baking business...sell wares to neighbours until their own health spirals downward, weakness, coughing, chest palpitations, fever,aching body, loss of weight..the sinking feeling of despair, of a slow dying themselves..of fear, terror,the family taking them to traditional healers....and of course nothing working to combat this vicious desease..not even after giving chickens,goats, cows,money and clean white sheets....no money,food left,no hope....a visit to the hospital, councelling with ICA - who dole out ample portions of maise meal and cooking oil along with goodadvice towards hospital visits,ARV treatment,support and often joining this Open Positive group...

REwarding and totally unexpected to me...the leader of this group, Maranga.. spoke of the effects of these interviews on the people we interviewed in his group, how they were lining up to have a chance to talk of their lives, for the first time anyone had ever taken the time to ask the stories..then they go home and tell their family and friends,with pride, of their conversations,of how someone from outside wanted to talk to them,BECAUSE they were openly positive with thecommunity....how much confidence and self esteem they felt...It was astonishing for me and very gratifying...what these meetings have meant to them....the hope it has given them...the will to believe in themselves,to go on..it was astounding.

He thought that this confidence would probably double the membership of his group over the next year,as word spread from neighbour to neighbour around the community....
We will be facilitating a Home Care workshop on Monday with members of this group and others in the town who have not yet taken the plunge to declare themselves openly...
I was presnt at two such workshops..in Zinmbabwe...given by Munarwo and his wife Orpah,the peole who are askng us to send vegetable and herb seeds from Canada to embellish their big garden, proceeds going to orphaned children in Harare....
SEND SEEDS TO: Munarwo and Orpah Magadzire, 327 Section 2, Tsanga Road, Kambuzuma, Harare, Zimbabwe....if you want to email them directly (English is spoken in Zim) email: indigem36@fastermail.com

So with information from those workshops i have been asked to facilitate one myself on Monday...combined with that, we are going to work inconcensus decision making and group organizing, with the intention of opening up members of this group to being allowed to take ownership and responsibilites of and for their group...leaning away from the one person at the top model....it has been an interesting process working with Masanga, the man who started the group, who has given his life blood to it,who has relinguished all creature comforts for his dream, who sold his bike to raise money to bus to Dares Salaam to buy books for this group, who is praying for a t v monitor and VCR to educate the community..for him to understand the natural evolving nature of successful groups, and how original founding leaders might be encouraged to relinguish a bit of power and control for the good of the growth of the whole..etc.etc...it has been fabulous to work so closely with him and his members....
carefully assessing personal issues and needs...more on that Monday next...

HELPING HIV AIDS PEOPLE IN HANDENI..
iT IS A timeof Christmas in my country and around the world....here in Handeni I am not awareof it in any way, no xmas trees,no tinsel, no cards..just onTV the othernight, in Swahili the news anchor speaking with a decorated tree behind her, oddly out of place in the world i inhabit....but Christmas time it is...
a time of giving..and I am putting out there places and people i know directly who we can help...Please send financial donations, every little bit counts, through your bank to the bank account of:
Handeni HIV Aids Positive Organization,
bank: NMB Handeni, Acct. Number: 4142300435
bank address: PO Box 123,Handeni,Tanga Tanzania.

I think that is all you need...

Tomorrow and Friday, my first two day art workshop here in Tanzania...gallons of waterbased paint arrived sunday from Dar...by bus: red,yellow, blue,white, black...I have so much paint now it will supply me all the way through Tanzania and Nairobi..!!
the rest of the supplies i have been gathering...no paper yet,that is today....
Next week we will travel by bus out 30 kil to do another art workhsop with batik artists and Masai...can't wait!

RE THE MASAI..I did manage i see to get a few pics on this blog..amazing...
I will post and publish this entry as to not lose it..terrified am i to have spent the morning and having it disappear into cyber space..and write a bit about this fascinating nomanic tribe visited by Elke and I Sunday to their village just outside of Handeni....
WEdnesday morning ...hot,sweltering even at nine am...humid,it is that which gets to you, the early morning climb, always, for 20 minutes or so, straight up...past the boys loading water from the ditch pipe into huge plastic yellow containers to strap onto bikes and ride, and walk and drag up these hills and down dales. As i go by they practice their English, "goodmorning,howare you?" repeated from one to the next laughing hilariously as they experiment boldly with the unfamiliar sounds, or perhaps and more likely than that laughing hilariously at the strange white womanmakingher way past them, boldly again if Imustsay, and up the hill..otherthan my German friend Elke i am the only white making my way around these parts.r.Handeni is a land of red dirt, dried into hard mud like stone...its homes weaving up and down the valleys and mounds of pitched paths, tracks pitted with holes caused by torrential rain, four wheeled trucks, bicycles..its women wrapped in bright textiles fabric, carrying usually something, many things, on the top of their heads expertly: like pails of water, plastic pans of bananas, beans, huge bags of maize flower to make the beloved ugali each morning, each evening..often with a child attached by more fabric to their back, its feet sticking out from the front, its head bobbing along with the rythm of her walking...
the men...many engaged in this water carrying endeavour, gruelling...left mostly for the young ones...men working on construction of homes...driving vehicles, walking up and down...along with the women,children of all ages,chickens, goats and cows...the cackling and crawing of crows, chickens, roosters, mooing cows and bleating and braying goats, it is a lively scene..
Almost anything you might want on a frugal existance is sold in shops lined up on a few dirt streets, side by side...busy, people resting under shade trees often sitting on piles of huge bags of used clothing sent over from European countries or america....
Jambo...the universally accepted hello for anyone at any time of the day or night..Mambo used to teenagers and 20 somethings if you want to pretend you are cool, a slang for the former..and a barria a sambui...a more challenging greeting in the morning only followed by nzuri which means you feel great...I havemanaged to get through the latter, and on to the nzuri, andat that point i must seemas tho i know what iam saying..because it is responded usually by a torrent of information and words i am at a total loss for understanding...unfortunately for me...how wonderful it would be to understand languages when travelling,how much closer and more interesting would one's conversations and thoughts be....
I am blessed with working with ICA Tanzania Handeni..Eunice is extremely well educated, from a tribe near the Moishi district, speaking perfect English and able to translate for me almost simultaneously...

I am going to publish this blog and start anew one in case electricity dies out, i have been warned it could happen...

Monday, December 04, 2006

Hi...two days trying to send pictures through....without luck...so please use your imaginations for a time...have been interviewing people who have tested postive with HIV AIDS for the last few days...ranging in ages from KASHOMO, a grandmother -75 years to her dear little very weak grandaughter MUZNA aged four. Everyone in their group have 'come out'...a huge decision to make with much courage, the STIGMA factor here still in Tanzania huge, families ostricating loved ones,husbands who refuse to be tested leaving wives who are positive....but coming out gives strength, openness, support from many workers and friends in the community....their determination to educate others and to lend assistance is overwhelming...Masanja, the founder of the group, age 54, a former businessman with two wives, five children with the first, two with the second, the first died,the second infected along with himself....everyone blaming each other, the family disowning them,they moved from Dar es Salaam finding themselves finally in Handeni after years of working as a farmer in a nearby village, weak, exhausted....he decided to come out and begin a group of likeminded people...the pandemic here affecting 24% of the population in the early 2000s....
each person i spoke with experienced symptoms which were similar, chestpains, freezing cold, shivering, fever, headaches, shortness of breath,feeling like they were dying....some convinced they had been bewitched by evil spirts..most went to traditional healers in the beginning, with their families approval of this....healers tried everything,from herbal medicines, boiling into a foul tasting drink...from drumming, cutting into the skin of the arm with a razor blade, rubbing powder into the wound/blood, concoctions of every kind, asking for goats, cows, white bedsheets and money for compensation,but still,in every case,months,years of this..and still the patient getting weaker and weaker..losing weight....unable to cope..finally, someone suggested the hospital....
ARV medicine just came to this area free of charge in July of this year..many of these people are now experiencing a huge change in their health for the better...now able to help with others, and work toward educating youth, and people in their community,although the stigma is still rampant here....
Astonishingly, AMINA came in with baby JUMA strapped to her back..she is positive,her daughter is positive and the baby she is carrying is her grandson...she is 36 years old, has three children of her own..and is the fifth wife,the youngest..watching with dread the other four as they died..and then, her husband died....no one knowing who brings this disease into the family, it is pointless to point fingers....
It is darkening and i must run up a series of hills to get home before nightfalls..
talk tomorrow...wishthismachinewouldn't skip as it does...it is frustrating, but at least, IT WORKS!!
xme
Number two..Monday...quickly..we only have a few more minutes on this spectacular machine...so happy i can send pictures...a number of you have written to ask where and what they can contribute to in lieu of Xmas presents to family and friends...what a great idea I think...this being why i am trying very quickly to get photos to you..tomorrow i will add the text...and contact people..for vegetable and herb seeds, and especially for financial donations....believe me, everyone i have spoken with and interviewed is desperate...desperate.
This blog entry will encompass pictures from the Handeni HIV/AIDS Organization...with its 27 members ranging from age 54 down to AGE FOUR!! As i mentioned last week they are very brave, in coming out...the STIGMA of the disease is huge here...with relatives and friends knowing of their positive diagnosis, they are most often shunned by those who loved them the most. Nevertheless they work tirelessly to educate and assist others who are sick...constantly around the clock, at their own expense, as volunteers..depriving themselves and their families of the basic ammenities of life which we so often take for granted...
Here they are..
1- some of the members of the HIV AIDS Handeni organization
2- Masanja, the founder of the organization.
3-Mwajuma, her story tomorrow...
4 - grandmother Kashomo 75 and her 4 year old granddaughter positive tested: Muzna
5 - astonishingly young grandmother Amina, age 36 with her grandson Jumu
and finally,
5-Naomi....unmarried, who contacted aids from looking after her father..age 49..





Hi..okay...Elke my new German friend who is the local governance advisor for two years has majestically allowed me to use her unbelievably fast Dell computer, which actually if you can believe this, takes my camera..I have so much to tell you...the weekend was filled with Masai....Saturday outside of Handeni at a huge Masai market auction for cows and goats...and beer...pics will have to come later for that day, BUT..Sunday Elke took me out to a Masai village 18 kil from Handeni, hidden but for a large hole on the left side of the road...and a change in gravel colour, from red to white...
These pictures today are from that experience..enjoy!
Tomorrow when i get to my normal horrible internet cafe..i will struggle to describe the massively interesting three hours spent there, culminating with our Toyota truck getting stuck miserably in a huge hole on the road..but that will come later...

Saturday, December 02, 2006

Saturday afternoon...just got back from the most amazing thing...every week,hundreds of Masai people bring cattle and goats from their villages to a hilltop about 15 kil outside of Handeni..where they barter and sell their livestock, the atmosphere is electric with animals, Masai, African people moving around, checking out and bartering, at another area goats and cows are being slaughtered, i didn't go there, and justnext to that...fires are built with pieces of animal skewered with sharp wooden poles and driven into the ground, all around the fire...to be roasted for selling and eating in mud huts with thatched roofs a bit of a walk away..women from the Masai tribes are selling jewellery, so of course i bought a few pieces hanging around my neck now targetting me as a REAL TOURIST. No one else buys these things of course but us, and there are no other whites around, so i am flooded with attention...they even let me take pictures...usually they don't, convinced that we whites are taking the pics back to Europe and making a lot of money off them, which most probably they are..the Masai tribe is tall, lanky and beautiful, wearing flowing red and magenta robes of fabric drapped elegantly around their very high tall lanky forms....their ear lobes sport huge holes, as big as silver dollars..with earings of giraffe hair, mirror and white beading....the same wrapped around their necks..the arms and calves bedecked in silver and copper rings, many many of them, circling around the body, rubber tire sandles, sometimes, othertimes drinking coca cola, on cell phones wearing western sandles...like me...
I am entranced by them. Ihave just finished reading The White Masai..fabulously interesting if you have a bent towards anthropology...a white German woman, Corrine Hofmann...who met and married a Masai 15 years ago...living in the wilds of Kenya with him, and customs...they have made a movie of it...she returned 14 years later..having fled with her daughter to save her life....and wrote about that too... I was approached by an older Masai...with 4 wives wanting to come to Canada with me...i spoke of the perils of snowfall...and he would have to sell his over 100 cattle to pay for the ticket..he declined, mostly afraid of snow, i assuring him i was afraid here of lions, tigers and bears...
Yesterday the Aids day....a huge parade of over 300 secondary school kids...for a couple of hours, we following..finishing in a shaded glen, with school chanting, a skit about HIV Aid...done amazingly...songs, poems...of course i have pics but no way to show them to you! the World Vision director here, delivered an empassioned dynamic speech for about half an hour to these kids, it was electric...huge...they were mesmerized by him...afterwards i was asked to speak, i told them that even not speaking Swahili..i was certain that what he was imparting was of supreme importance that they should take heed....that in Canada the big topic around Aids is SAFE SEX..that they MUST be careful..that their lives were at stake..etc. etc...
Afterwards i understand that he was talking mainly about ABSTINANCE....and how hard that can be when someone has already experienced the glory of sex..but how important it is...and here i was going on about safe sex....Walking home a young man rushed up to me, in his grey pants and white shirt from the school, speaking English confessing that he had had sex..and how was he to stop doing it...?? my director cut in and told him to keep busy at all costs..this is a problem not only here but everywhere....
At the end we agreed that abstinance would surely solve the problem, but for many kids it is out of the question, and good education re condoms etc...is needed...
the church playing a big part here, i see...
Am not getting all my emails through, i am seeing...many are writing that they have sent me information i have not received..sorry...i am getting about 13 everytime i open up when i can..but apparantly lots aren't going through, so please bear with me...send them again, i would say..love hearing from you...
On Monday i will be 'interviewing' people from the Aids Organization i spoke about the other day..with stories...i am asking them to email anyone who send donations tell you directly exactly where your money is going..i am comfortable with that...
also my paint is arriving from Dar Es Salaam...with Doris our Tanzania director...she has had to buy four litres per colour...way more than i can use, but need it for the workshops..she comes in tonight, will be great meeting and talking with her...
have a great weekend...talk soon...hugs Lynn

Thursday, November 30, 2006

hi..huge torrential rains and windstorm last night thundering down reaking havoc on hardened red mud cow tracks wandering through Handeni up hills and down dales...this morning rendered undrivable, cancelling our trip into the villages, buses have stopped running, allowing for a free day on the internetwhich is happily up and running so far..pray...yesterday got heavily into an email to my kids and the power went off, that's it...patience...
Got the bank account and address of the Handeni HIV/AIDS Positive Organization...27 members,this is a big deal here for people who are positive to come out...the STIGMA of testing positive is enormous, humiliation, embarrasment with family and neighbours, some are suicidal, so to belong to this organization is huge..those who hide away deprive themselves of support and medical assistance....their lot is much worse, we are trying to assure them, that this happens to millions of people world wide that they re not alone...
They asked me inCanda who looks afterthe sick...i try to explain,various organizations, family...friends...welfare...hospital assistance,insurance, etc...they have so little of this here...so
YOU CAN HELP.... Ihopethis is okay with you to be putting out ways to help these people..it is different here, because i know andhave pictures of the very people your donations will assist....their lives are so desperately sad...the basics, there are none...so if you are interested....any amount of assistance is needed:
Donations sent to; Handeni HIV/AIDS Positive organization....
Bank: NMB Handeni, PO Box 123, Handeni, Tanga, Tanzania.
Account number; 4142300435.
As i said, any bit helps...i asked them about seeds here, and told them about what we were hoping to do to help in Zimbabwe...but many seeds don't grow here, it seems..so financial donations are the best....let's seewhat happens! i intend to take these projects home when i get back in February....andkeep them up...
learning about marriage here; eventoday, not just in traditioal ways...the husband to be must give the girls family 4 cows and 8 goats..two cows right before the marriage and two when the first two children are born....the goats right off..plus blankets et....the youngest son must look after the parents in their old age, i likethis idea..johnny take heed!! In the masai tribles, thewarriors can sleep with whomever they wish....if ahusband comes home to find a spear dug into the ground outside his mud hut, he must leave without complaint...the warrior have their ways....hence the HIV population is high with Masai...
i am walkingat least ten miles a day....up hill and down....to get home, i must wend my way carefully through mud and dung pits and holes amongst cow herds and goats bleating and mooing, down to the water source i spoke of yesterday...andthen back up to home...it is easy to find my way, i follow the women carrying empty pails for water...or the guys on bikes with six two gallon plastic carriers strapped on...headingfor the water..all along the way i am saying, :JAMBO...to everyone and anyone who shouts out the same to me, the only MJUNGU (white person) in handeni that i have seen..the children either shriek in terror as i come along and run swiftly back to their mothers hollering,orrace up to touch me...one or the other...nothing in between.
Whenifinally get my way down to the bottomewhere the sourceis, there are about fifteen bikes there waiting to fill up, lots of women, with huge pails of water balanced on their heads,howdo they do it..i amcarrying my litre of bottleddrinkingwater...they all shout, the guys, HOW ARE YOU?? laughing merrily at the sight of this white woman struggling all the way down these hills and going back up...it is all very merry....at the top yesterday i am met by my two four year old boys: Kenneth and Bryson..i am so happy to see them....
Every night we do about a half hour of exercises....yoga, they copy everything i am doing..plus some singing,they are trying to teach me Swahili..i have got about 8 phrases down pat...but that's it..useless!! but trying....
Dinner is around nine. Either the maize flour porriage like national dish called UGALI..same as SADZA in Zimbabwe...which you ball up in your right hand and dip into various sauces, the vegetable, a combo of tomato, onion, carrot...then with bits of beef, or fish...so far no chicken here tho there are lots of them running around freely everywhere...mornings are alive with screeching roosters, quail, the mooing of the two cows right under my window.....Breakfast is usually tea,with ginger...and crepes...rolled intowraps...delicious...
That's it for now...
Lots to look forward to, tomorrow possibly a traditional wedding ceremony...ontheweekend diner with a German woman i just met yesterday...church, Pentecostal with singing anddancing..the head of ICA Tanzania is comingin this weekend as well, I am hoping to organize a safari over xmas andnewyears...andthen on tosomewhere else, this is after this month here.,.,
Take care everyone...itwill be great to catch up with you when i gethome..take notes!
hugs.L

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Oh how do i wish this computer had access to my camera, have fabulous photos,but we are lucky here in the far corners of Handeni Tanzania to finally have the only INternet Cafe in town working after three days of trudging heavily up here, and i mean up, in sweltering heat, dripping humidity...the kind you run from in Canada to the pleasure of air conditioned cars, houses, but here there is none.... no relief but to sit quietly on occasion and let the inside temperature of your body sinkdown...the town is bigger than the villages we thundered through on the most rickity of buses yet Sunday from Dar es Salaam..packed with people on the seats, in the aisles, the only saving grace is the beauty of them with colourful fabric textiles you dream of, each stop drawing forth boys carrying high to reach open bus windows oranges, hard boiled eggs, pastries of some sort,all covered in flies...hot dry gutted pitted paths and trackways we sludged along, cow paths - leaving the tarmac far behind - six hours of it...got off at the wrong stop in Handeni, taxied back in the back of a pick up with my three huge dusty bags to Dignas house..nice, open, dark...a severe water shortage here, a ditch in the valley below with water pouring out in bits to service the town, boys carrying six 2 gallon yellow plastic containers strapped onto bikes, racing down for the fill, and back up, over high hill and down into gullies...pushing their load by hand, it is gruelling and i thank my stars i am only carrying my back pack and purse...someone brings water to our house...i have my own room with a bathroom attached. one pail is for the toilet after using....the other warm in the morning but gorgeously cool when i reach home around 5..set into the base of a shower, crouch naked and begin the most refreshing moment of the day....the cleanse,it is divine and never again will i take our shower/bath system with ample water for granted, ever. Electricity too, shortage, we move about by candlelight, from about 6: 30 on....lucky if we get lights for half hour a night, mostly never..
Meals are prepared by their maid Ashiona....there is a small round stove fuelled by charcoal sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor,dishes are prepared on the floor....taking hours to get ready, dinner is about nine...Digna who speaks some English is away for the week, her poor husband is left with me, a shy man with little English..plus two four year old boys who are my constant companions, yoga, singing and drawing...alot of my evening is spent in my room under the mosquito netting reading The White Masai with a little flashlight.....I recommend this book immensely..i am fascinated by the Masai people, they are tall, slim, gorgeous wrapped in cloth carrying a sort of sword. Bedecked in beads, the women stunning as well...you see them in and around town, their village is about twenty kil away....i will be taken to them next week or so, to show them art things,to spend a day...this is a real treat as white people and even non Masai don't get to do this often....
Have been taken to the Handeni hospital twice now....visiting people positve with Aids..seeing conditions....hundreds waiting on benches, with babies, old people, ,Masai....
The Aids epidemic is becoming worse here, they have had access to free ARV treatment since july and since then people see there is a 'cure', so they go back to their old ways without condoms..education is badly needed here..there is a huge population of Muslem people with multiple wives...always this problem, and with the small houses (mistresses) it is difficult to stop the pandemic...education is needed, money is needed...just came back from the Aids HIV oranization to talk with their 27 members...about Aids in our country....in Zimbabwe...the grandmothers we read about, the four year old girl who stands as high as my knee,scrawny, frail limbs, huge black eyes, pleading,whimpering for food, she is hungry i am told...the grandmother warm, open loving, what can we do? i will get their bank information...maybe someone out there can help, any amount will go a long way, and i am adamant that the connections i am making will go directly to the people who need it...things are very tough here, as they seem to be all over Africa with people who are sick, poor...what can you do with a widow who is positive who has four children and no means of support....
Met with a classroom of 12 to 15 year olds who asked all about Canada..snow...and painting and drawing....my workshop will be next week, provided we can get paint,otherwise i am giving small classes every day to groups of 4-6...pastel, sharpies, water...showing upside downdrawings....contour..
Tomorrow we are taking a bus outside of Handeni to a village of an artist who does folk art things...i can 't wait...
Missing you all...especially at night...for an extravert like me to be on my own for four weeks every night for hours in my room, thankfully with great books..it is a challenge...
Hugs to you all....in CAnada,in Zimbabwe,missing that wonderful land too...xl

Saturday, November 25, 2006

GREETINGS FROM DAR ES SALAAM....TANZANIA....!!
HOt hot hot..humid...the air thick with moisture, sun hot..so closer to the equator, with seven minutes and eight seconds togo beforethis sticking machine grinds to a halt....a great flight here from Handeni...six hours all the way up to Nairobi and back down, go figure but blessed to sit next to a kindred spirt from Uganda..and Aids worker who travels all overthe world..brilliant.loved her...made the flight and last goodbyes from zim pass/ran all over Harare the last day. to find Mary Meza a peanut butter making machine...to supplementher income,thisis micro economicsin full swing,she and her co workers willmake the butter, sellit. and hopefully get a bignew start,weall needthat...plus a last goodbye to the twins Leo and Leon....she wailseverytime she sees the white ghost woman from Canada...i love these people....willmissthem terribly...
Picket up by Digna Peters andher friend,freshfrom a workshop here....havingf just met...she is modern the firnd traditional,from the coastalculture, henna,scarf...her husbandincontrol ofher.....a chain aroundher waist for beauty...
ON to Handeni tomorrow,6 hours on the bus, to the Masi....
Luckily your.take care, sorry about this,machine...xL

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

hi..my last posting before Tanzania tomorrow....reflections of Zimbabwe, but first, many have written: how to help? what can we do directly from Canada...?
HERB AND VEGETABLE SEED DRIVE: MUNARWO and ORPAH MAGADZIRE..two immensely open, outgoing, friendly people, both widowed 5 years ago to Aids- found each other, both HIV positive, he with tuburculosis on ARV treatment, making a big difference in high density community of Kambuzuma...they've come out re their status,energetically, emphatically facilitating workshops on HIV education, prevention, Home Care, Perma Culture - importance and healing qualities of herbs, good diet,the drugs don't work without nutritional diet - sharing personal health experience, side effects, home care needs with others ashamed or afraid to reveal status - hence not getting support, antiretroviral drugs, help from community.
They've started a big community garden, growing 36 different kinds of herbs and vegetables; ..drying, making ointments, cremes, GIVING food to those in need, educating and SELLING their produce - proceeds going to ORPHANED CHILDREN supplying school books, fees, pencils, uniforms, shoes...these two dedicating their lives for others -I am in awe. Orpah bursts into song at my workshop...strong, praising God, thanking for the things they have, the love and care for each other, the joy...it is loud, fun, delightful, bursting into dance; contageous.
WHAT CAN YOU DO? PLEASE!! send packets of herb and vegetable seeds to continue the success of this project, to: Munarwo and Orpah Magadzire, 327 Section 2, Tsanga Road, Kambuzuma, Harare, Zimbabwe...If anyone would like to email them:
indigem36@fastermail.com. They will keep photos and records of donated seeds and contact us regularily...GREAT IMPORTANT IDEAL, and we CAN make a difference..

oh Zimbabwe...I fly out tomorrow morning at 11am..all the way up to Nairobi and back down to Tanzania, 9 hours in total for a short distance, such is the way in Africa...Sad to be leaving so quickly..realizing how much i am going to miss so many friends: how much i want to return...Mary Meza my project coordinator..who has unfailingly shown me the way, routes and buses, facilitation, food, customs people - surprising her this afternoon with a peanut butter making machine, a project she can only dream of to supplement her income, with ever horrible rising inflation - Chipa smiling, huge, dancing, lost three sisters to AIDS; Cathrine who makes cloth bags and sells potatoes at Mufakose Saturday market - enough to purchase last year a sewing machine to grow further; Paddington - actor, film maker, satellite installer, handsome, witty, teasing: with a wife,4 kids, two parents, uncle, neices and nephews all "scratching his back" all needing support...magical stone carver Tawanda introducing me into a world of Bushman caves and villages and traditional ceremonies, spirit mediums, mbira (see pic, Rasta musicians, batik making - visiting for the last time baby twins: Leo and Leon..more milk, getting stronger everyday - Collettah district coordinator, huge, warm, heart - relentless and determined to save those babies...the family I've stayed with who house and feed me..last night at the Zimbabwe college of music, in a tiny room bursting with awesome vocalist Tauerai Nzira and his outstanding gospel band, in rehearsal - stunning, simply blown away, with brother Frank, himself an outstanding musician.
Could I bring them to Canada in June?...
Zimbabwe, with its purple, pink, coral blossoms, stunning sunsets, wide avenues, squishing buses, music, dancing, joy,warm, generous people: the REMEMBERING WALL at my workshop, 19 people recording 97 names of those they've loved - framed in colourful paintings, first time artists proud, empowered, determined to keep painting...
Zimbabwe: recently bread basket of Africa: massive inflation, fuel, electrical, water shortages, brain drain, depleted drugs and medical supplies, corruption, impossible to understand like a wanky mirror in the circus grounds, hugely proud, resilient, determined to survive,to ride it out....
and SAFE, yes safe..in every respect...unlike what we read in western press: political false warnings to keep tourists (money) out; UNSAFE they scream: it simply is not true. Everyone who visits here knows it. I have gone everywhere, done everything; as i would at home..watching carefully as I would at home. Period. Illegal sanction; read Cuba. More about that later...
Moving on..
Tanzania.. another land, another world...this time to Handeni, a small village hotter, humid, buzzing with mosquitos....malaria, first pill this morning...Masai people..tall, beautiful, beaded carring spears.. mud huts with few windows.. the internet cafe across town, a bit of a walk..often not operational...just to let you know..may take some time communicating, it will kill me.
I'm off...be well..
PLEASE SEND THE SEEDS!! hugs...me

Monday, November 20, 2006

Hi...Monday late afternoon...too late for a long blog this time...\it's almost nightfall and have to get home....so much to say, about traditional African ceremonies celebrating the mermaid spirt, water, dancing, music, hot, mbiras an ancient traditional instrument, giving a beautiful one, trying to learn to play a little, loud music, chanting...dancing....then the spirits coming forth....raw eggs mixed with wine, bawdy, chain smoking Portuguese fish monger...another glowing beautiful like Sophia Loren speaking perfect English....who in her mortal body a simple peasant woman speaking only Shana, by day hoeing and hacking the fields for maize planting...and that is only a little of it...

Tomorrow and Wed my last art workshop....meetings...materials....saying goodbye to people ravaged with the daily task of survival in this beautiful land, suffocating with western sanctions, which do nothing but attack the poor...everyday, inflation higher and higher..prices up, food, pure water scarce, transportation impossible, and yet such resiliance, such joy, delight, huge....despite sickness and death permeating the very fibre of each family, each person...it is natural here, normal, a way of being, a way of life. of helping each other, neighbours, friends...giving, helping, showing, assisting, caring....something so rare in our culture...makes me think so much....
Got to run...talk soon..xL

Thursday, November 16, 2006

When i'm out there i'm thinking of everything to write..then i get into this little box and it disappears,like the 21 cows that got electricuted by a single lightening bolt under a tree, zim getting more lightening i am told than any other country in Africa. i am sure that is intriguing to you, yes?
Today a meeting with the five high density (slum) district head coordinators...foot soldiers each one of them, discussing at first what they'd accomplished this month, or hadn't...workshops, outreach, networking, visits to bedridden patients,relatives, funerals, hope, laughter, joy, hardships, despair,it is all the same, one huge smorgazborg of life at its fullest..these people work tirelessly voluntarily, when asked why..one man, part time actor, full time when he is not working with ICA satallite hanger upper...lost four brothers, he is the fifth, another woman the same with three sisters...everyone has someone in their family, husband, wife, neice,next door neighbour, rampant, pendemic..they can't not do this work, her face shines with light, that that she has a chance to learn how to prevent this carnage, teach people, assist, doing everything she can to try to stop it, get a handle on it...unstoppable passion, devotion.
Huge. it is their life here...fully...non stop, never ending...impossible for me to comprehend, even being here. Moving from one family tragedy to the next, with such humanity, humbleness, joy, laughter, i'm not kidding...openness you don't see so often at home...living so close the the edge..
Leaving next week..just when i get settled, used to how things run here, how they work, get to know and trust a few people well, moving on..
it's a bit clearer now...going from one country to the next, seeing,living, comparing,hopefully adding to each situation, giving to the next what i learned from the last...All the work through the years tied up in being here..drawing from every experience, things just come, falling into place..insights, ideas, knowing a bit, just a bit, learning patience, sitting back and observing, the experience of someone else leading, taking the back seat, learning way more than when i am the driver...
Such insight, such human experience, such knowledge. so much hope, care, prayer. With so little. Pure Survival. Where to get sadza, rice, potatoes for tonight's dinner? Not where, (there's lots of food around for those who can pay) but how? Everyday things get worse. Sanctions; no foreign money this year, for Anti-retroviral Aids meds. 45,000 people on it; 600,000 not.
Gawd it's depressing..and what is the answer...??
Gerald's father told me this morning that black ants in a row travelling along on the cement of a patio are looking for a place to go down before rainy season; if they dont they will die. Down is under the earth, where they have been storing food for months, like squirrels, or chipmunks which they dont have here...hardly any dogs. too costly to feed. One cat. 298 chicks born last week and growing everyday in the garage where i am living, the doors tightly closed keeping it hot and unbearably smelly; ready for chow by December...lots of cows, goats, sheep outside town. Old people bent in two hacking at the fields with ancient tools tossing corn seed into rainy season, back breaking, hunkering down. Women in skirts. Me too.Swinging along. Tomorrow, another workshop on HOme Care...then on to the village and caves....
have a great weekend...I think it's Thanksgiving...happy bird. back Monday...

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Rainy season crashed down upon the corregated roofing of Section 2 community centre in high density area of Kambuzuma, 30 k west i think of Harare...three weeks late they say, climate change...impossible to hear herbalist fascilitator Mungarwo Magadzire describing HIV AIDS home care, yesterday and today. 20 some participants, most of whom are positive he tells me, tho most of whom haven't come out. He and his wife of 4 years have, big time, having both lost mates to the disease 5 years ago, they found each other. "I am not the teacher; WE teach each other, are you with me?" Charismatic, strong, proud, informed, he weaves and cajols stories and information out into the open. I learned a lot. Primary and secondary caregivers, roles, infections and how to treat them: 95% get diahhrea which we spent half the morning discussing, with cures, to my interest, read my lips. Some brought their babies. I'm holding them, playing with them, missing mine so much. These babies, some too are positive. This disease is so rampant here; it feels like everyone has it, or has a sister, or neice, or someone who has just died. Pandemic. But getting better, from the 90s with 30% diagnosed to now with 18%, tho a rise in "little houses" is uping the stats considerably in the last few months, little houses being the second house of the mistress, or mister finding favours outside the marriage and passing it along. They've just passed a law against child abuse and it seems in retalliation it's growing in leaps, papers screaming with it, plus lots of corruption, court cases, shootings, infants being left in caves..the usual, plus a good dose of info on solar panels, alternative energy - the rise in electrical shortage causing someone to consider.
I did a session on meditation; stress relief, breathing deeply, in and out, in with the healthy positive, out with the toxic. White light. They had never experienced this; some reported that it eliminated heachaches, that they could actually FEEL the inside of their bodies..I'll add this onto my art workshop next week; seemed to do some good...what else...busy, planning workshops, materials, just getting around,half my life is on those buses.

Street scenes: a makeshift table of tin propped up on stacks of brick, carefully piled tomatoes in a pyramid, pieces of ginger, potatoes...pumice stone. LIttle clumps of people selling anything and everything, to anyone who can or will buy. No harassing, no begging, no one lying on the sidewalk, the streets abound with stunning people, high fashion, women, dressed beautifully, with freshly cleaned ironed clothing. Hair is plaited, crocheted, wound, twisted, braided, gorgeous, with bright red tressles dyed or extended, stunning. Most women wear skirts. Simple, unadorned, western clothing, you don't see costumes, traditional wear.
Brian wrote me of the languid pace he experienced in Uganda many years ago; not here, we are rushing always, on and off those crazy buses, squeezing, moving quickly, but with care not to collide; crossing streets with cars racing along on the other side of the road; trained for my life to look right when stepping out, not left, try it, took me three weeks...
A second visit with the twins Monday...with three thick foot long bars of soap for laundry imported from South Africa and a bit wad of paper money, enough to buy milk for 10 weeks; felt good, and again thanks to all of you who have helped out. I know exactly where your money is going and it is a great feeling.

Nine days to go and on to Tanzania a week Friday.
With the spirit medium and ancient village with bushman cave drawings, I can't begin think of leaving Zim, yet.
Hope you are all well, wonderful...talk soon...L
PS sorry no pics; the computer with memory is occupied..hopefully next time..be well.

Sunday, November 12, 2006


I think I'm on to it!

trying...
Hi...sunday morning in Zim...thanks for emails. how are you? election? let me know!
Technical finally met! pics from camera to computer, so here we go! my art workshop, the Remembering Wall, bbq at Friday concert, newest best friend and social director, children's class, Mary Mesa doing her first painting, trees bursting with blossoms,Twinbs....hope they get to you from here...enjoy!
Ah...Sunday morning coming down, huge concert Friday night,thousands of people, roasting pork, chicken, with salza-the national food, a paste of flour which you ball up with your right hand, dip into veg or meat,delicious, on stage Alick Macheso,dancers, flashing,hot,crazy,non stop moving till 3am, purse got razor lashed across the bottom -nothing lost whew, home at 4 - wiped yesterday - too old for this stuff!collapsed, relaxing, catchup, nice...quiet, lovely.
Am experimenting..will post this then do the pics..

Friday, November 10, 2006

Hi - it is wonderful for me to hear that people are actually reading these things..i sometimes feel that i am writing away happily into cyberspace like a "hello wall, it is me again, howare ya?"!! You know when you have those days that you just know you will look back for the rest of your life and remember..well that was me yesterday..
It kind of started out with a bit of a logistics misunderstanding, but ended up with a great stone sculptor Tawanda and i heading out of Harare on a big old rickity bus to what was described to me an ancient 'village, and caves, with bushmen paintings, ceremonies, drums, etc..' in the Dombosuawa area of Zim, ask me whether i was thrilled...
After an hour of tossing and lurching through countryside, flat, red soil, bricks are abundant here, we stopped at a sort of parking place, filled with old pick up trucks, a centre for food shopping, people milling around...jumped into the front of a blue pickup, the back jam filled with guys comuting from jobs in Harare, five guys bending into the hood, pushing the old jalopy backwards its driver next to me, trying to get it started, and off we went...
Another hour through dusty red roads, gutted, rutted, rocks, holes, past round concrete huts with thatched roofs, little clusters of these homes, people carrying packages on their heads, women in bright dresses, skirts, even out here in remote rural Africa..groups of schoolkids in uniforms straggling home sharing the roadside with cows, goats, and us..slowly making our way to finally the village, which is a compound of one huge family, called Chitauro which means 'place of communication', the patriarch Dominique who Tawanda had told me about, greeting us, hugely friendly, warm, laughing, lovely...the husband of five wives, father of 36..the 5th wife, 23, with 6 kids, one girl, five boys taking me on a tour to the round kitchens of all the wives, clean, a fire area in the middle, thatched roof, brightly coloured dishes, the sleeping area in the next small hut, clothes hanging abundantly from the ceiling, and on to the spirit house, where i am told the ceremonies are held, we take off our shoes, watch, camera and head inside, concrete floor, again the thatched high pointed ceiling...a raised stage at the front to hold the spirits, three ratan mats, one at the front for Dominique who is the spirit medium, and one on each side, for the women, and men..drums in the corner...a place with energy which felt hugely spiritual..awesome..Tawanda told me the spirits come in the early morning and late evening...resting during the day..there are five houses on the compound where the seven spirits live..a library holding a far better selection of books than most (in Harare the books range from Christian religious to self help)..a place where guests can stay, all very primitive...met everyone, the wives, many kids, a grandson with the same name Tawanda who makes mbiras which are small hand help musical instruments with prong like metal pieces which you fling with your thumb and first finger hard, making fabulous music...
we have been invited back next Friday night after my workshop...
there will be a ceremony late that night in the spirit house..
i will sleep there on the floor to cleanse myself, in the early morning there will be a ceremony to receive the spirits of my ancestors...
To be continued, that story, in a week from now..
and on to the caves...
massive high slabs of rock covered in green and turquoise liechen...we climb up and up following the arrows...it is almost sunset, the wind blowing softly, a warm almost evening...we climb, i am breathless, with the vista of miles of rock and hills and mountains...huge rocks set upon each other...i have forgotten the name for this, but God made...heavenly sent, this was a space in time..no one there but the two of us and the spirits of rock, sky and ancient times. what more to say.
we couldnt' find the caves.
we are coming back next weekend..on Sunday after the ceremonies...dying to see the drawings inside, by bushmen, maybe 1500 years ago...
A day of legends, stories, philosophies, ideas, politics..
Made a decision on the way home..I am canceling my weekend trip to Victoria Falls..the money not spent will go to the twins..I wrote about. Have seen pics of the falls, have been to Niagara a million times..this one is for me..
thanks for listening, hugs and have a great weekend...xL
.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Good morning, Zimbabwe, just like good morning America, the movie.. remember..somewhat boyed by the US election results, it is all over the papers here, cnn...such an anti-US bias everywhere you go, to whomever you speak...the general consent around Saddam is the US hypocrasy, having backed him in all his past genocides which now send him to the hanging galley...enough about politics, something you speak quietly here about...enough, it is a gorgeous morning, the purple blossoms have almost fallen on red soil mixed with pieces of straw to keep the dust down, changing now into stunning deep red coral blossomed trees bursting out all over Harare, their branches canopied over wide paved roads..while I am here, they drive on the "other" side of the road and fast..the problem for me is crossing, i am always looking to the left, when the cars come full tilt upon you from the right...
Meeting with artists again today travelling by car which is a treat to some town 30 ks from here..ancient old, i am told with cave carvings, will report later.. Tuesday was magic. five of us, travelling in and out of Harare central to a stone cutter factory, where Bernard my newest best friend has friends there...beautiful work, but no where to sell it, and no one to sell it to. There are no tourists here, none. \No commerce, no economy, little passing of money...there is a black market which keeps thing thriving, everyone seems to use it. there are differences of opinion varying widely about government, people do talk, argue, exciting for me. At a place called Hatfield, we walked for about a mile to a reknown sculpture's home and studio. His work was haunting, amazing. of mythical animals/man huge, made of wood and metal, found materials...he sells in the states and \israel...tried to check out his website but couldn't get through \: www.chenjeraimutasa@yahoo.com
\maybe you can get it...very interesting..
|I am told they are shutting me off now in a minutes, so goodbye, have a great day..will write soon...couldn't get through to sympatico so this works...i wonder sometimes, is anybody out there reading it! weird!! \L
Hearing about it is one thing. I had to see it with my own eyes before I could fully comprehend the horror bleeding the underbelly of Zimbabwe. It took twins. Twins.

Not the morning talking with women living with aids - Mercy on a cocktail of anti viral drugs, kids 5 and 13, went public, husband took off, headaches, blindness, menengitis, but she's working it through- feeling much better..with luck,on her way. Margaret recently diagnosed; husband won't test. She's philosophical, one in three get it - at least one in every family. Part of life. She will try the anti viral drug, but not yet, not till after rainy season, maybe, December, January...She waved us away, smiling a bit too brightly, it happens she says, it just happens.

Me,a bit hungry, tired, dragging our heels through dusty red streets, shanties of corregated metal, wood, plaster on either side, plants we call tropical, pinks, yellows,flowers pushing up here and there through rugged concrete,kids playing along the way, looking, watching, some shouting hello or shying away from the white lady ..peering warily from behind their mother's skirts. A bit scared.

Twins. I was told about them last week, a boy and a girl, about a year and a half old, but wanted to see for myself. A small garden, a thin man wan, tired, greeting us with one arm, the other hanging limp by its side, his right leg paralysed from a stroke a couple of years ago. The dad watching over two babies sitting on a rug a few feet away. Huge brown eyes. Black hair. Cute, gorgeous. They sit and stare, a pot of gruel between them, black flies circling, landing on their face, hands, arms. They don't swat them away. They don't cry. The babies only sit still. Watching. Big black eyes watching.

I stoop down, say hello, hi...a big smile..they don't move...their tiny thin bodies covered with flies. They just look out. They dont react. I play peek a boo. Nothing..
Nothing.
The mom died a few months ago; the grannie too old, too tired, too poor - they were just moved in from the rural area a few weeks ago. They haven't had doctor's care, shots or milk for months. Yhey eat gruel.
Someone picks one up. She doesn't move; she slumps against a chest, listless. She stares out. Weak, undernourished, wane, whatever words I dredge up, these children can't stand, can't crawl, can't pull themselves up. No energy. Old, tired, done.

I have seen it with my eyes. Children, victims, witnesses of a world gone very wrong.

I have twins at home. At 5 months, they are the same size as these babies.
The woman who brought me there said anything could help, anything. Inside their tiny house, two couches facing each other, a chair at the end, a coffee table, set into a room the size of a bathroom, the dad's brother, out of work, holding the girl, his wife holding the boy, across from me as I open the zipper of my bag. $4,000 each baby for milk for a week, that's about $4. Can...$8 for two...I start counting out my hundreds, thousands, bundles wrapped in elastics, wads of paper money, worthless in our economy yet to this family, worth everything..I release a big chunk of it, almost all I have - it looks impressive. I hand it over. She starts to count. 500, a thousand, 500, another thousand. $13,500 it comes to. $13.50. They are smiling, every bit helps. The family begins to clap,the aunt and uncle, their own older twins, the brother of the little ones, my friends, all of them looking at me, thanking me, clapping. I am mortified. I am sickened by this. I am buying paint, paper, sponges to enthuse, inspire, empower...But milk. Calcium. The white stuff. That's what's needed.
And there is never enough. Ever. Nothing is not enough, nothing will only get them a month, maybe too. And then what. Then what.
What are the answers. I don't know.
I can't wait to get out of there. I'm up and out of that little room.
I just spent $2.60 Can. on this blog.
And I don't even know their names.

Monday, November 06, 2006

hi..this will be a quick one..made my way down into the bowels of the \harare bus system terminals, a stretch of 10 blocks square tumbling with vans, buses, cars, cargo, everything and anything that will or could or might carry people, us...while \i am on that subject you climb in praying that there will be a seat at the back, the van, with six rows of benches, each carrying four passengers..if you, and i invariable get stuck in a sidebench at the front, are unlucky, you have to get up and jump out quickly with every bus stop when people from the back squeeze themselves out, you are sitting on each other, literally, sqwished..see \i can't even spell this morning, but looking forward to a great day meeting artists, taking buses everywhere, seeing art in people's work spaces..maybe hearing some home grown music practice, don't know..
it's been good..am aclimbatizing myself...meetings re last week's workshop..setting up another one with youth, 12 to 24 \i am told..in a couple of weeks, assist two workshops on AIDS home care next week.
Gerald asked me the other night about \poverty, what is poverty, it came flooding out, obviously the poverty we think about, lived here, without food, without clean water, housing. But also the poverty of the soul, the spirit, an emptiness people experience who lack passion, a drive for life, for living..the silent scream of lives, whether wealthy or poor, lives lived on the surface, scrambling for meaning, lives dead inside..The high cost of dying\; the govt shut down 21 legal funeral parlours this week, they don't mention why, so the cost of preparation and buriel fees shot up to $200. (US)...exploding in a moonlighting business of undertakers undertaking the business for a mere $20 a pop... they charge $19. for a plot during the week; $24 on weekends.
\just got told i have three minutes to go..so best stop, click the publish button before they wipe it out..
have a great day...miss you all...x\l

Saturday, November 04, 2006

Oh my gawd..i have just spent the last hour and a half writing, and for some unknowable nasty twist, the whole thing deleted...I am aghast. it was good too, descriptive, filled with thoughts, emotions, ideas, insights..gone.
OK..a hasty update, hello from Zimbabwe, Saturday afternoon now, 2pm, been sitting here since 10am..thanks to all the emails coming in from across the world..great to hear news from home..election in Creemore, Johnny sending pics of the twins, he running the NY marathon tomorrow, hope i can get it on the internet...
I can't believe i lost all that..
OK the workshop this week. on art, the first one the ICA has given, i am a bit of an experiment it seems..20 participants some walking 2-3 hours to get there, some coming only for the mid morning snack of at least 6 slices of white bread and juice, lunch: chicken and rice...we eat with our right hand, the national dish Pap, or Pup, a combination of a wheat flour and water boiled and stirred..delicious like cous cous....no napkins, few trees, little paper...community centre, open windows blasting in hot air..the sweet sound of a class of 4 year olds next door singing xmas carols..we begin with an introduction, most absolute art beginners, nervous, quiet, sitting silently, then come the infamous spirit cards a la Douglas Walton..later one devout Christian confessed how worried he was when he saw this on my agenda, fearful of evilness coming into the workshop..but these were a huge hit, 25 cards for their children and grandchildren.....each one different, original, made by themselves, they were ecstatic, and we used them to imagine mountains, bushes, trees, creating landscapes: big land, little skies and the opposite for those who know these workshops...great..it was wonderful for me to watch them grow, the empowerment, the concentration, the sense of huge proudness when they discovered I CAN DO IT!! i am an artist..I can't wait to get home to teach this too my kids, my grandkids... I can use this in my batik...so exciting..wonderful. We finished with a REMEMBERING WALL. I've been trying to figure out how I could incorporate the HIV AIDS issues with an art workshop...and this worked poignantly..a celebration of the lives of those they have lost to the disease..we all put names on a banner in many colours sizes...75 in all, framed at the end with 40 brightly coloured completed paintings done throughout the two days....we took pictures of them in front of the Wall..I would love to share this with you in pics but am technically challenged at the moment..later...
I gave everyone a certificate for completing the Creativity ARt Retreat in Dunedin Canada fine arts workshop....I won't forget this..

Later the community coordinator spoke of three babies which has just come to her, orphans..whose mom had just died, a 5 month old, and twins 1 and a half year old, a boy and girl,with no family, no money, no milk...could we make a project for these kids...yes..good for you to know who helped me with donations, where your money is going directly, straight to these kids...thank you...

thoughts, ideas, experiences...last Sunday on a long walk, cluster of religious people drapped in white sitting in the middle of a scruffy weedy field chanting, praying...during the week old people hacking away at the weeds to prepare for corn planting next month when the rains finally come; sanctions, what good are they doing for the people in Zimbabwe who are most effected by them? I wonder.

things are desperate here in the sense of little food, housing, clean water for so many people..yet you don't get a feeling of anger, despair, stress at all..gentle loving giving, quiet people...you see working together, helping each other, a giving, a huge sense of hope, joy, laughter in what they do have.."we are surviving" we are Zimbabwe, we will make it...but to take away the basics, to withhold money, food, agricultural machinery,how can this country grow, how can it work its way out of the spiralling downward they now experience: fuel shortages, there is no gas. we almost didn't make it out to the workshop with the supplies..electrical brownouts, blackouts almost every night without a storm in sight....when you think that the majority of the world's population live without electricity...reading NO MORE OIL by Paul Roberts, excellent book, a must read....
I am basically terrified that this machine will delete again soon..so i am going to call it a day...
am not going back to edit, delete..make more interesting, you get this one the way it was written...fast....(thanks to my servitude at Shaw U. a million lifetimes ago...)
Oh - before I go...wanted to say a word about Madonna and her child adoption, seen with huge suspicion here, the papers are full of it, the people i have talked with, wondering, whispering "why African children" why AFrica...they confide in me, the issue of child abuse coming up...I am shocked...
So go Johnny go...
I'll be thinking of you...
Have a great weekend everyone...
signing off....Lynn

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Happy Halloween..! my gawd i miss home tonight..they don't celebrate it here...musing, bout years of Halloween pasts in my life, the fun of dressing up with family, friends..last year in Brooklyn wiht Casey and Merit and years before, autumn leaves falling gracefully on cozy peaceful Creemore...of beleagured ghosts and ganders treading fearfully up the porch steps in pursuit of loot...being away - so far away, and for so long, makes you acutely aware of what's back there..time for reflection, remembering,nostalgic, sad sometimes...specially at night..days full of workshop planning..material getting, yes i found a great access to latex house paint for my workshop thurs and friday. Costs are crazy,a litre of paint going for $16., double what we pay here -tomorrow i will be mixing colours from 9 pots into 30 pouring into plastic containers: still hot in pursuit of our common kitchen sponge, and water spray bottles, they don't exist here it seem...but other than that set to go..great help from my project coordinator Mary Mesa who lives out in what is called the 'high density area' of Harare..a thirty minute busride from the city centre, ghetto she calls it...about a million people out here, sometimes 20 to a house..life is lived outdoors in the blasting sweltering heat of summer here, much like JUne or July back home on a really hot day, hot - arid, scruffy, not alot of shade..little plots of garden hopefully growing lettuce, cucs, carrots here and there, mainly red sand scruffy, worn with years of tread, well behaved children playing here and there sneaking a peak at me,odd looking, white, the only one here, and maybe the first one they have seen..babies glued to the back of their mom, tied with blankets, towels, wrapped tight around her chest, clusters of people attempting to eak out a living selling something anything, to someone, anyone on the side of the road. Here is where the highest density of Aids is..I'm told someone in every home suffers..with the rest of the family desperately trying to help..ICA is making wonderful inroads into this community - this one and five others surrounding Harares...
Mastered sort of, the public bus system this afternoon...crazy, hundreds of vans, busses, people squeezed in, on top of each other..music blasting - windows wide open, about 40 cents a ride..cheap to us, but a fortune to people here..
I'm glad to finally get the bus system. transportation is limited here..Yesterday, we ran out of fuel on the family car, had to take out its battery and hook it onto another vehicle to get the kids to school..sense of freedom to hit the road on my own..it's okay for me to take these buses, safe, I feel safe..
Happy Halloween...and for me, tonight, missing home..one of the other sides of being on the other side...have a good one!

Saturday, October 28, 2006

Saturday morning...a great night last night..went with Gerald and his brother to the BEST traditional African music...12 guys hot..dressed in original warrior clothing...using ancient and contemporary instruments, loud, wild...dancing like mad, crazy...a welcome relief after cofacilitating a two day workshop...lucky i had some experience with facilitation,consensus decision making,group action...but learned it with the Quakers back in the 80s...ICA has worked out a great methodology and way of teaching of which i knew not..!! Challenging as they say in the business...20 people...located out in the high density area of harare...hundreds of one floored houses packed together,mothers carrying babies with sheets andtowls..wrapped around their chests..the babies hanging out the back, fromthe front you see a shrouded bosom with two feet protruding from each side...market, lots of action, food on the roadside...music, noise, activity, colour, sound...life teaming with life...great warm people...i´m staying with the director, his wife who works with UNESCO..who has been in paris all week...their two kids..gated, secure.
next week i´m giving my big two day art workshop...doing it much like the way i do it at the art retreat...monday andtuesday..we are estimating and buying paint..paper..sponges...water spray bottles i hope...
i have two people helping me...mary mesa and MARANGA...HE IS the logistics person... am conquering my problem with remembering names which are unfamiliar to me..like maranga...i am sure this lovely and very helpful man´s name is not totally pronounced like that but reminding me of that tango dance in Dirty Dancing THE MARANGO or A...and it works...samewith Geralds dad..whose name is MISSANGJO...thinking of MISS ANGEL..anditworks..therest, likegoodmorning or how are you in Shoni escapes me so far...my brain is splitting after a long day facilitating ICA methodology i am just learning...with people who speak very softly and gently, hence with all the drumming and noise outside, i can´t hear...partially in english and in shoni..so yes.it is challenging.but so very interesting.they ended the workshop with three local actors portraying a hilarious but nastily true vinette on family violence against women...

moved deeply by stories from the workshop...a woman with three sisters who have died now, leaving each one, three kids...to be looked after by the remaining ones...all of whom deny the cause of illness....except her, she who is making it her business to understand and learn, and then go out into the community to teach..the AIDS percentage here is coming down...from 30 % to now about 18 i am told....lovely people, an artist who tells me of how artists are seen in his community, different, strange..to be avoided...not trusted..i missed a meeting today of his frieds, other artists..back out at the location...no transportation, but am learning how to take the bus system myself....not unsafe...as our western papers portray...

sothat´s it for today...don´t know when i´ll get back..but you all, be well and safe, and have a good weekend...haveloved your emails too..thanks...xLps...haven´t gotten the picture connection down here yet...onething at atime..but i cansay thatwhen i flew in this place ws covered in purple flowers....