Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious. - Rumi

I believe in small acts and gestures to show my son I love him. And this too applies to the love we have for our country in the various cities we live in. I listened on Star FM’s breakfast show this week about an initiative by With Love Foundation in collaboration with the Proudly Zimbabwe Foundation of cleaning the City of Harare. To me citizens who avoid littering or take part in cleaning up the city, is an act of love for Zimbabwe. Speaking during the show, representatives of the two Foundations reminded us that we love to live in clean homes and we don’t find ourselves throwing litter in our own homes, why then throw litter on the streets? The Zim Clean Campaign is trying to attract 2400 volunteers.

According to the With Love Foundation:
“The aim of this drive is to keep our city clean. We intend to do this by mobilising the general public to keep their streets clean. The demise in street sweeping activity should motivate us not to sit back and complain but should mobilise us to act. We as responsible citizens of Zimbabwe should then be empowered to re-create our Zimbabwe.’

Details for the clean up campaign are as follows:

Date and Time: 26 January 2013 at 1330 hours in Harare CBD
Points of assembly:
Market Square Bus Terminus (0772867300)
Fourth Street Bus rank (0772264471)
Harare City Library (0736971414).
Dress in jeans, sneakers and white top; if you do not have do not worry. We just need YOU.
All volunteers will receive a Community Service Certificate.

Now you know, please share with all your friends.

The success of the system is dependent on us believing them –

‘that we are all enemies and cannot trust one another
we are all competing for the same piece of pie
that we are not safe’.

What if we stopped believing this?
What if we met our assumed foes with the voice of friendship and our fears with courage and trust?

As we stand poised on the brink of yet another year
with the same power in the same places
and  Zimbabwe under the threat of yet another election and the accompanying intimidation and violence

we wait
as the leadership juggles around their personal advantages against what might happen
. . . if the choice to was given to the people (god forbid)

It can look pretty dark out there

But what we see depends on where we look.
Perhaps if we choose where look more carefully we can see the next steps in the journey

Two stories have given this year a certain impetus for me:

One from my niece, Hayley, who teaches at a junior girls school in England

‘……they are from a very wealthy section of London society – it’s a private school with small classes so they get lots of individual attention, and I often want them to understand how lucky they are – not so that they feel guilty but more so that they become aware of how they can help others. And so I introduced R.A.C.K to my class – Random Acts of Care and Kindness. I made a paper bunting strip that hung at the back of my class and told the girls that every time they did something nice for someone else they could write it on one of the paper triangles from a particular box and I’d hang it up. They quickly got the idea and within two weeks the string was full, so I added more on two sides of my room… and they filled up too.

None of the good deeds are very dramatic but they are sweet – helping a neighbour wash his car, getting a box on a high shelf for an elderly person in a supermarket etc.

The thing is, these girls have decided that they love helping others. They understand that a smile and friendly greeting go a long way. In fact before Christmas when the whole school walked across the town to the local church for a carol concert practice, the whole procession was held up by my class chatting to the homeless guy outside Marks and Spencer’s who was selling The Big Issue. It made my heart sing!

And slowly, the girls are changing the world one smile at a time.’

The other was an event offered by Barbara, Jonathan and Sam, who celebrated the birthday of their friend  Carrie, in South Africa:

‘Carrie is one of those generous souls who do things like (to quote her) – “dancing the whole night through until sunrise (preferably in a small, hot shebeen in Nairobi), baking cookies for your neighbours, going to a dinner party and spending the entire evening playing with the children, paying the toll for the car behind you, stopping to help someone stuck on the side of the road (even though you know NOTHING about car mechanics), giving someone an unexpected present, eating an entire box of chocolates, deliver a meal to someone in need, spamming your friends with (hopefully) inspirational text messages, organising or attending a demonstration for something you feel passionately about….” You get the idea? ‘

At her request, B, J and S  ‘Did it like Carrie’, by going through the collection of books and DVD’s, and holding an open house  yesterday afternoon with an invitation to us all to come and collect what we would like.  We had tea and caught up with one another, shared stories and began the year in our community in an act of generosity.

Do we look, forever, to the dark out there, to have our fears echoed back at us
or do we walk into it, shining our own?

In the face of whatever is coming – these random acts of generosity carry with them the possibility of something different

and they begin a spiral of patterns that has no know ultimate end.

It calls to me.

Our country has a history of violence – our children have experienced the horror and fear of rape and beatings in their schools, communities and homes.

Tree of Life workshops have been spreading throughout Zimbabwe over the last 9 years. They are Healing and Empowerment workshops facilitated by survivors of torture, violence and rape. The Story Telling Circles are based round the tree metaphor and allow for the integration of past, present and future experiences, and makes a deep connection to spiritual beliefs and traditions.

And our forest is growing, the roots stretching wider and wider throughout our country.

For the last 5 months, this growing number of facilitators have been gathering in ‘Gender Circles’ and meeting the difficult space between socially and culturally accepted norms and matching them against our Tree of Life Agreements: Equality, respect, truth, love, tolerance, humility.

These have been difficult conversations, particularly in a present external culture of abuse of power. But like all difficult conversations, they have been rich with compassion and learning.

The women have begun to move beyond the silencing of their voices and the ownership of their bodies. They have spoken of the value of mothering and community and loyalty and love, the limitations of jealousy and victimhood, and have learnt to walk with dignity and respect.

The men have listened to stories of rape – and have had the space to share their own. They have looked at the inequalities of ownership, and the effects it has had on their lives – in schools, churches, political organisations and the places they work. They have shared the limitations and difficulties of family  responsibilities inflicted upon them – often from an early age.

We met last Friday (18th March) There were over 50 of us, facilitators from Tree of Life communities and organisations representing the hundreds of circles who stand behind them, and we spoke of the One Billion Rising on the 14th February.

And we decided we are READY
We are ready to join the dance
We will be joining all the global rising on V Day against the abuse of women.

We are in the process of planning
Watch this space!

We will be posting on Facebook, Her Zimbabwe and One Billion Rising Zimbabwe

Rob Burrell Unplugged / Mann Friday: A night of acoustic tunes

In Zimbabwe for a couple of weeks Rob Burrell surfaces to host a night of acoustic tunes of Mann Friday music, including tracks of their new album Trainrides and Radio Play.

All proceeds from this event go to the Harare Children’s Home.

When: Friday, 11 January 2013
Time: 6:30pm … show starts at 7pm
Where: Tristan’s Bar, 14 Aintree Road, Highlands, Harare

Entrance: $10, and we encourage you to bring some clothes to donate

Special Feature! A cap signed by the members of Cold Play will be auctioned.

Food and drink available.

Come, listen and support a good cause.