11.40am
the thermometer on the verandah reads 32.7 (humidity too low to measure)
we still have to get to 2.30pm before it will stop rising…

Last week I paid a visit to Tel-One (our land line provider)
I parked in the shade and watched a few bemused and disbelieving people
stumble down the old steps clutching a large yellow book

Inside there were no queues
or bustle
just the guy entering and re-entering your ID number slowly into the computer
in 10 minutes I too was floating down the worn PO steps
I too was clutching a 2011 Telephone Directory
(last one was issued 2006 – all hope of a new one was lost years ago.)
with  yellow pages:
that reassures that all the electricians, plumbers, panel beaters etc. who disappeared off the map
have indeed re-emerged
(it is a comfort to find Mediocre Business Merchants still listed in Kaguvi Street)

even more………

I also held a paid up receipt for US$65 confirming that within a week
a ‘splitter’ would come and split my land line
and we would be connected to the internet via a fiber optic cable
for a small monthly fee of 30$
imagine
– a gateway into the 1st world – wherever it is – and no-one else seems to know!!!!

(this is an added comfort as the satellite broadcasting BBC and NPR seems to have dropped out of the sky lately and radio addicts like Mel and me feel as if we have lost a good friend.)

Internet – in the house!

no longer will I saunter off next door, computer under-arm
through the coffee trees and the vegetable garden
to perch on a rock under the masasa trees to down load my email

A friend or ours arrived here a few years ago with all her goodies packed in zip-lock bags
as she saw us pounce on them with whoops of joy she said in the nicest way
‘you Zimbabweans are so easy to please’

Since we moved into American currency so much has changed:
we now get zip-lock bags and Thai green curry paste and South African crackers
even if there is no change under a 1dollar note

We cross the edge in small steps
first the outdoor fire under the fig tree
then a gas ring
then a spare water tank (for when the power is out and the borehole stops working – municipal water failed years ago)
later came an inverter – so we can watch a video / listen to music
then a reading light in the lounge

Mel took us our latest step over the edge
by fitting lights above our gas plate and kitchen sink
(low power – connected through the inverter to a battery)
No longer is there the same rush to get all the candles lit when the power goes out whilst cooking supper

And I wonder
will we lose our ability to flow, to make a plan, to ride the waves?
our need to connect to one another to know what is going on
our creative spirit born of living on the edge?

It’s all so much more convenient…
having a telephone directory that works

Inspired by her parents, this very special woman began Amuya Sara Nursery School, out of her rural home, to look after children of working mothers. The school is situated at Mahusekwa Growth Point in Chihota district. Ms Mkondo sought to relieve their burden, as many of the mothers worked long days in the fields, with their small children on their backs. The children were guaranteed at least one good meal a day whilst under her care, and with her nursing background, she tackled malnutrition among these children and also educated the mothers on the importance of immunization.

Older children were soon drawn in as well, (initially by the food), and Ms Mkondo started a story telling session, led by her late father, to entertain and educate them. After getting a diploma in Library Studies, she managed to get sponsorship to buy books at the book fair and started a library. The Sekuru Sara Children’s Library now has 500 books and is enjoyed by those who can read in the community.

The project soon expanded to include mothers. The women began the Amuya Sara Women’s Group, where they got emotional support and embarked on economically empowering activities.  Making use of another one of her diplomas, in interior décor, she taught the women how to sew goods for sale. This group has proven to be an invaluable resource and ideas base for the women, as they get an opportunity to put their heads together, and improve each other’s lives and skills by teaching each other all manner of things from cooking, to gardening to budgeting and so on.

Ms Mkondo was also interested in including school-leavers and dropouts in the project in order to keep them gainfully and productively occupied. She trained young women to be pre-school teachers and also how to sew, while her brothers trained young men in carpentry and welding.

These projects have had their ups and downs, due to drought, and limited funding, with the nursery school even closing down for a few years. I’m glad to say that the nursery school is operational again and the project has received further support from the chief of the area in the form of land to grow food for the children as he had seen the benefits his community received from this initiative.

Ms Mkondo has had to leave the project in the hands of her brothers and other women she has trained, as she currently works in Harare as a nurse aid. She hopes one day to be able to return to her projects on a full-time basis. In the meantime, she is working on future plans for the expansion of their current library. This small library has become a de facto information gateway in this area. There is therefore the need for a larger building, furniture, more books and a computer in order to sustain and expand the reach of the service.

Even though she has already done so much, one gets the sense that she has only skimmed the surface, and that there are greater things to come from this inspiring woman. What a wonderful place our country would be with more women like Tabeth Mkondo.

Sometimes something touches you so deeply that finding the words to express that experience is impossible. That’s how I feel about Poetry Africa at Book Café. I would like to write about the defiance in Xapa’s performance of HIStory, the beauty of TJ Dema’s articulation of womanhood, or even the happiness we in the audience felt as Didier Awadi performed in French because of the joy we could plainly see in his face. I don’t think my words would be adequate. So I’m going to share Harare, whose performance by Chris Abani moved me to tears.

harare
chris abani

his thoughts shed tears for what his people
have lost
Chirikure Chirikure

Downtown Harare. Pavements and nice trim
islands feel like the white Africa it used to be.
Its fading beauty arrested in the late seventies
feels like Lagos in the fade of colonialism.
–
But Yvonne says: Butterflies are burning.
Here.
This is kwela.
–
In the Quill Club, black journalists hold court,
say, Bob uses this land as his
private safari. The kudus are
nearly extinct. They play pool, chafing
against the government. We could be in
The Kings Head in Finsbury Park; a cold
London night. And the locals complaining
over warm pints about the native problem.
–
The still young woman smoking
a pipe against the wall of the museum
was once a guerrilla. Says, The men here fear me.
She knows all about killing.
Also about blowing smoke rings.

This is kwela.
–
In a market adjacent the poorest township
I finger useless trinkets, displaced as any tourist.
All the while ogling valuable-in-the-West
weathered barbershops signs
that I am too afraid to ask for.
–
Everywhere people wear cosmopolitan selves
but tired, like jaded jazz singers reconciled to loss.
Hats are perched at that jaunty angle that makes you
think that all washed-out things, like Cuba, are cooler
than they are. Is this kitsch?
–
And everyone says: The trouble with Bob is…
And this is kwela.
–
In the Book Cafè, a vibrant subculture:
Art, music, and poetry are alive and well.
Rich whites slum with African: for a moment
we all believe it is possible. This. Here. Now.
–
A Rasta in Bata shoes does the twist
to a Beach Boys tune played by
a balding white man in a night club.
This is kwela.
–
The older white farmer in the five-star hotel
still calls this country Rhodesia.
Says, No offense, but you bloody Africans
can’t run anything right.
I have him removed.
–
It was not always so,
and still I have questions.
Yes. Yes. Even this
is kwela.

Time tips
flooding the world with light
within a week the canopy will close around us
as the dry dusty world draws close her new green cloak

Large portions of the garden are now monitored by Heuglin robins
who perch above our heads and rattle warningly
shepherding their new fledglings out of reach

The paradise fly catchers  arrived two weeks ago and we have already begun to find their nests
housing tiny sitting females – beaks in the air
The couple who had their nestlings snatched by goshawks last year are also back
they sit in a considering way over the old nest
‘is it worth patching up? – perhaps if we put in a new carpet’
do they remember their loss at the gut wrenching level that we do
or is it just a new season?
a new present in the spiraling of time?

Two  White-faced owls
perch fluffily on the fig branch outside the a-frame
watching for food…

I finally worked out where the black and yellow caterpillars come from
(the ones that utterly devastate the calendula crop within days)
the eggs are neatly inserted in the flower buds
and the minute larva hatch into a container of golden petals

as I watch, a wasp lands on one of these gold-eaters
and strikes with a deadly sting
and as it slowly writhes its last moments on the planet
the wasp busily severs off one end
to take this newly killed morsel back to its young

and I – who was about to get rid of all the buds-with-holes to protect the calendulas
am challenged to see the world through another lens

Life cycles at every level

The barbet argues ferociously with the Honey guide
who is trying to lay her egg in the barbets hard won nesting-hole
3 new species of cuckoo have moved into the garden
each one of them with a plan to drop their eggs into the nest of some unwilling surrogate parent

A trillion tadpoles have hatched in the pond
will they all hatch into a trillion croaking frogs?
what act of nature will limit their population?
the pond skimmer slowly sucks the juices from a drowned moth
and the spider who has diligently spun webs overhead
now winds the latest prey in its threads

the guppies have had baby guppies
are they eating enough mosquito larvae to limit this seasons swarms?
are their enough mosquitoes to keep them all fed?

it is that same old matter of survival

but at a distance – this beautiful system shifts a gear into new and abundant life
against the back ground of flaming bougainvillea and purple jacaranda
is a pattern of colour and shape and flower and insect
difficult in detail
unraveling in beauty.

Celebrating the donation of furniture and equipment to Pamberi Trust, and a small ground breaking ceremony for the arts factory NGO house at 78 Kaguvi St, Harare.