Update 7 - magic

A euphoric exhaustion encircles me... but I must get this out before I collapse into the corpse-like slumber I fell into last night, and no doubt will discover tonight. Today is Tuesday.  We intended to leave Bulawayo on Sunday, to come to
HIFA, the Harare International Festival of the Arts, Africa’s largest arts festival, which is this year celebrating its 10th year of being, the theme is Enligh10ment.  But having just returned from the hills of Matopos on Saturday, from a 3-day music and meditation retreat called Resonance, the post-mortem of the retreat was still underway on Sunday, and so it was decided that Monday would be the day for our departure, 2pm to be exact.  Of course my lift arrived to pick me up at 2:30pm, and we were off... until I discovered I’d forgotten my cell phone at home.  And so we turned around.  And then finally, we were
off... and we trundled down the pot-holed streets of Bulawayo on the Harare Road, passing a Portland Cement factory, and a brick factory whose beautiful round oven like buildings looked to me like an architectural marvel... or at least one that could be a photographer’s dream.  But 5 minutes later, I snapped out of my visual daydream as we were stopped by the police who claimed we were going 127km/hour in a 120 zone.  Merv claimed this was not so.  The police requested 20
dollars, saying that had it been 125, it would’ve been fine, but that those extra 2km required payment.  Merv refused.  The cop retreated, and finally off we went.  4 and something smooth and unproblematic hours.  Until of course we were just passed Lake McIlwaine, and the car, with its deceptive fuel indicator that insisted we still had over a quarter of a tank, ran out of fuel. I laughed it off and took a nap, relieved that we had just arrived within cell phone signal, about 40 or so minutes from Harare... so we pushed the car into the long grass and waited in the darkness, with only the light of a waning moon and a universe of stars above us. An hour or so later, help did arrive.  I climbed into bed last night, dead to the world, ignorant and unsuspicious of what today would bring.

And what a day!  I’m not sure where to start to recount the magic that interrupted us so unapologetically.  It all began this morning, when I realized I’d left my camera battery in Bulawayo, and after letting go of my irritation with myself, I had decided that my words would have to illustrate these few days.  So we headed to the gardens outside the National Gallery where a young artist described his pieces to me, a representative of the Times.  A board canvas, a soccer pitch painted
on, bottle-tops signifying players, with Morgan and Mugabe on the same team, playing at Differences Aside Stadium.  Mbeki as the ref.  The Linesmen are the UN and the AU, whilst the coaches are John 15:12 and 15:17.  One the sidelines stand Matthew 22:39 and Mark 12:31.  “Treat others”, the artist tells me, “as you yourself wish to be treated.  It is time for a new Zimbabwe, for us all to play together.”

 We return to the National Gallery to explore the permanent collection, with great abstracts by the late Marshall Baron and
others.  Upstairs, we discover a colourful room of African drums, next to which a wall stands full of loud African paintings, and bizarrely, one lone Renoir sketch!!!  We return to Aviv’s family’s shop... giggling at the peculiarities that are the treasures of our decrepit country.  After returning from lunch at Nando’s – Aviv insists it’s better in Zim – we stand at the entrance way of the shop, where a woman walks in with a baby on her back.  The baby, pressed comfortably against her mother, in a way that only a child who’s experienced that can understand, wears a pair of lens-less tortoiseshell sunglasses, skewed to the side of her little face.

In the afternoon, we head to the Delta Gallery Foundation, whose walls are filled with great big colourful paintings, benign in theme, until one looks a little closer, and sees the shades of national politics in its layers.  Derek Huggins runs the gallery.  A tall and distinguished older man, with slicked-back long white hair and a short white beard to match, he stands by the fireplace, a cigarette hanging from his lips, a tortoiseshell cat weaves itself around his feet.  We discuss the art on the walls, and finally writing.  He shows me a book he wrote, swearing that he’s not making a marketing pitch.  I ask him how much for the book, he takes it from me and leads me to a dark little nook of an office whose walls are covered in books and paintings, and wooden window frames, and has that musty smell of cigarettes and art and better days and worse.  With his handsome fingers, he elegantly lifts a fountain pen and opens a bottle of black ink.  He writes, “For Gabrielle, A good encounter, All good wishes for your writing.  Do it,” after which he signs his name, and presses an ink blotter against
his words: an item I have never seen before, “the good old fashioned way” he claims.  He hands me the book.  “A gift,” he says, to inspire me.  Little does he know, I’m already inspired.

Aviv and I head to a shop called the Treasure Trove, a dusty shop full of stale antique books, torn couches piled on top of each other, and walls lined with antique spoons, bone china, silver boxes and a whiskey flask which has been initialed and dated.  Aviv buys an old trunk whose sides still reveal the name of its original owner.  He then drops me at the ballet.  After the ballet, I head into the supermarket where I find a packet of Things, a childhood snack that seems to exist no longer in Bulawayo.  The day becomes dark and I need to get back into town to see the last show that I had booked for today, the
official opening show of HIFA entitled “out of the darkness, into the light.” Unsure of where to find a taxi, a man at the internet cafe walks me to the main road, where I board a minibus for 5 rand.  I arrive in town and walk to the venue, initially alone and nervous, but within seconds, the hoards of people indicate the entrance to the venue.  Within minutes of entering, I hear my name being called, only to find a group of Bulawayo friends seated on the ground in an ideal spot, picnic laid out.  The show begins.  A dozen women enter the stage in long violet robes with gold birds emblazoned on to them, and headpieces to match.  Their voices penetrate the audience with a certain immediacy that seems to me, can only happen in Zimbabwe. Another smaller stage is closer to us.  This is where the dancers and actors perform their dramatically political piece.  They remove a covering under which lie Mugabe and his cronies, who struggle to stand, but eventually succeed as they tussle over large bags of money filled with Zimbabwe dollars. The “elders” light a fire beside the
stage, and tie Mugabe and his cronies to a pole near the audience.  A woman, dressed in white, crowned by her marital veil, cries for her husband who has been abducted.  She recites a poem to the sound of the drums, baby on back and searches for him through the elephant skulls that cover the stage.  The vocalists move smoothly, effortlessly, into
Youssou N’Dour’s “Seven Seconds.”  The audience cries, moved not only by the story, but also by the visuals, by the sounds, by the sensations of such a powerful piece.   At last she finds him.  The dancing begins.  Traditional herbs are burned.  Mugabe and his cronies are brought on to the stage.  The bags representing their large bellies and the wealth stolen from our nation are violently sliced off them with a large knife.  They struggle, but at last are thrown into a smoky hole in the ground, leaving only Mugabe to stab open the wealth bags, in which he plants flowers and seedlings for a new Zimbabwe.
The dancing continues, the fireworks begin.  Another song:

“The higher you build your barriers,
The taller I will become.
The further you take my rights away,
The faster I will run...
...The more you refuse to hear my voice,
The louder I will sing.
Something inside so strong,
I know that I can make it”

Justice.

The energy continues to build, and the hearts of the audience are open
to such an extent, no thought can interrupt the feeling of presence.
In the dark, I scribble down some words:

My soul is accompanied by the shakers,
My heart beats to the sound of the African drums.
The nyanga dances bringing forth Justice.
The seeds of the Future are planted.

A grasshopper is drawn to the light on his back:
He crawls up the yellow fabric of new beginnings.
The sweat of power, energy, movement, excitement is drawn from his brow.
The beat quietens.

He hums a soft song,
In a throaty African voice penetrating outwards from deep within.
She smiles the smile of love,
Her dreadlocks tied back by a band of shells as she spits the holy water.

A spectacle,
Fireworks overhead almost within reach of my fingertips
The Future so nearby.
The darkness of the night illuminates the colours.
And my entire being joins the rhythm
of the dancers, the do’ers
Songs uplifting, reflecting on the Times
On Justice.