Category: Mbira travels

This is the year of dambatsoko mbira. Fradreck and Sam Mujuru are coming to teach through the summer.

At the end of an amazing trip to Dzivaguru. The young drummers and dancers are below. Those of us who traveled to study mbira together in the middle above with Erica, Patience, and Denver. (Click on photo to make it smaller or larger).   Blog is in progress..I will be rewriting and updating as I get reentered into daily life.

I have put in some events without writing much about them..notes really. I am in the process of going back and filling in days, events, and bits of reflection. Now that I am home, I see that I tended to write when I was a little stressed which makes some entries seem not as much of a celebration as I might have been experiencing.

I told Patience that I was nervous during our visit to Dzivaguru. She said, you are always nervous. This could be true. I don’t know if I will ever be able to convey the experience of the Dzivaguru village. Playing mbira for a village of spirit mediums with little chicks running through the hut and the enchantment of older women dancers with radiant smiles and sadza eaten from wooden plates with our hands in a kitchen with an open pit fire are only part of an experience that will be with me forever. Our 3 day prayer when doing back to Bushbaby using the blessed tobacco was a very rich ending to the 14 days of mbira playing. I will try to write more about this but the experience was bigger than I understand.

All of the teachers and honored guests come to play mbira and celebrate at Bushbaby Lodge out of Harare, Zimbabwe

Tute and Irene Chigamba, Fradreck and Sam Mujuru joined the teachers.

Besides Patience and Jenny Muchumi, I have now met a woman mbira player, Nyarai.  I had the pleasure of playing mbira with her for 30 minutes or so before she was called to help with tea.

Today I am remembering the trip to Fradreck’s village. We arrived after 9 sometime. We had sadza,beans, and canned tuna for dinner and arrived at bedtime at 11:00.

I slept on a mat in the kitchen storage area. I thought surely I would never sleep but I slept until 5:30 then got up to visit the outdoor potty. Difficult in the long skirt.

We went to the area where they held biras. Fradreck’s grandfather was a mhondoro spirit medium. He was executed by the freedom fighters.   I had always thought that he was executed by the Rhodesian Government for wanting peace.  He was executed because the mhondoro spirit wanted white and black people to walk side by side with equal power not one side over the other.

We stood by the spot where Fradreck watched his grandfather forge nails into mbira keys. Part of his history as an mbira maker.

Lovely kitchen with nice metal rack over the fire for cooking.

We had tea and started back in Fradreck’s car for Harare. They stopped a couple of times at road side stands for produce. We also stopped for Fradreck to point out the mubvamaropa  tree that is used for making the mbira.

Erica is starting a reseeding project. The trees won’t mature for 50 years. This is for our grandchildren.   Fradreck is part of the project.

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Waiting for Fradreck to pick me up. It is Monday, March 2nd. Thunder is starting again. Third day of thunder and lightning. Storms quite violent. Though not a strong wind or hail.

Confirmed flight out on Wednesday. Made me nervous. Good people here. I paid my final bill here. Very reasonable. Twenty five a night which is a special deal.

Fradreck and Mai Pasi have picked me up. There is a bad rain storm. Something is broken. The are trying to fix it under the umbrella in the rain. Mai Pasi said do not come out. So I am sitting in the car while they are fixing the fender which seems to be tied on.

Cathy calls this Africa time. When someone comes later than you expect.

The day before I leave I would like everything to be safe. And to get back safely.

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Today is our last practice day. Great until we tried to practice in the evening and it was terrible sounding. I finally got up and said this isn’t working for me.

Tomorrow is the party. Now that I hear we are performing for the mbira teachers I find myself to be less than enthusiastic.

There is so much good in this culture. Very relational. There are the same difficulties as anywhere else. Some people drink too much.  Some people have issues with certain other nationalities and there is now a basic survival for many families. The country is very
beautiful. The people are philosophical and relational in a village sort of way. I wonder what my place. is in all of this.

I want to go back to my own space not to Ashland.

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Wednesday. Nice breakfast with all including Gift Rushumbwa. He called Kaia and I the word for his son’s wife. He said that they do that here. You might call someone “older brother” or mom as Caution Shonai called me. Amai he said and later mom. This is a way of acknowledging the feeling of the relationship. Like son if someone is younger and you have affection for them. It might be the word for your daughter’s husband. Someone feels like that in relation to you.  Ambuya would be grandmother.  Muzukuru would be grandson. Or you can call them friend if they are. Calling someone by their first name is very unusual.

My mbira made by Gift Rushumbwa.  Good sound, wonderful buzz.  He is prolific. Works hard, has a lot to show for his hard work. I took this one from the states and carried it to Zimbabwe. Bought it through Mbira.org.

We went into Harare to try wireless. We stopped at the Apple store but the wireless didn’t work. We then went to Crown Point Hotel and bought a voucher for 30 minutes of airtime. The wireless worked but I could only post to facebook on my first voucher as Facebook loaded very quickly and my e-mail loaded very slowly into my iphone.  John and I shared a second voucher and were each able to send 1 e-mail.

We then piled in the truck and went to pick up more books on the Shona language which had doubled in price since last week. So Erica was going to try another route. We bought “stuff” at the equivalent to Costco called Makro. I bought coffee one kind from Zimbabwe. When we paid in US dollars, since there is no change, if you amount was more than a round dollar amount you had to fill out the rest by getting candy. I owed 12.02 so they just let me pay 12.00 even. The coffee smells pretty stale but maybe I can mix it.

We came back for lunch and practiced our two songs. Now we are waiting for dinner. Singing tonight. I don’t enjoy the singing too much.  Maybe I’ll grow into it.  I want to because the singing adds so much to the complexity of the music.

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