Now I want to elaborate a bit more the amazing Culture Club they have here in Dzikwa. It offers Traditional Dances, Marimba + other traditional instruments playing(e.g. Mbira) and really good poetry writing and presenting.(It can absolutely not be compared to our stiff poetry.) The Club is lead by Alouise Sagota, the Extra Lesson teacher, and supported by the three dancers and Marimba players: Michek, Samudan and Takawira.
Then there are also some elder boys, who also belong to our Security Guard Team, who actually won at the Harare International Festival of Arts(HIFA) as the best Marimba playing group this year and accompany our practicing dancers.
Since this group is really impressing, twenty of our Culture Club members were invited to perform at a festival of the St John Ambulance Group. Actually the reason for the event was rather mundane, as it was the donation of four ambulances by the ambassador of Japan! However, the event itself was anything else than mundane: Attending were two Reverends, the Ambassador of Japan and his guests, the Financial Director of the Ministry of Health and finally the Mayor of Harare. The Minister of Health was actually also supposed to come, but he excused himself in the end. So you see how many important people you easily get to know, when you are connected to Seppo(He once met Walter Ulbricht) and Oili and Dzikwa Trust.
The program itself can be tried to be deciphered on the photo(I am sorry, I can't manage to turn it around). First we all had to get there and to my surprise we only left half an hour late. The bus drive to get there was very enjoyable as our performers were delighting me and the other three Finnish volunteers by singing all kinds of songs.
When we arrived we started to build up the Marimbas, while waiting for the delegation to come, which was busy marching through the city with the four ambulances and the marching band of the Zimbabwean National Army. Then the ambulances were parked in a small space - rather funny to watch. After that the Dzikwa Marimba Band started to play some expert Marimba, which was followed by many speeches and the national anthems of Japan and Zimbabwe. The latter was accompanied by the marching band of the ZNA and unofficially by the Dzikwa Culture Club.
The speeches that followed were all very nice and grandiloquent. We heard a lot about "the people of Japan", "the gratitude of all the people of Zimbabwe", the donation as "a great service to humanity", etc.
The only more realistic speech was held by the Mayor of Zimbabwe, who reminded us that Zimbabweans have to work together to improve their economy so the next time they will not need to have ambulances donated, but "will give a service call to the Japanese ambassador to order some ambulances for Buying."Next, the ambassador of Japan was invited to cut through a ribbon separating the ambulances and the guests, since what would such a festival be without ribbon cutting? Thereafter Father P. Ngwenya of course blessed the vehicles.
Finally, it was the turn of the Dzikwa kids to entertain the audience. Their performance was amazing. I was so impressed and amazed by their talent and by their synchronic dancing. To be honest, I could not with all the time in the world manage to master these dances as they have done(and they are all younger than me) - They have rhythm in their blood. They were performing mainly traditional dances in really amazing costumes and accompanied by our Marimba boys. Later on we also heard some younger girls on the instruments (Ropa and Talent), who I am lucky enough to know as they very often come to the Shelter in the evenings.
How can I describe the dancing??? It is very energetic, fast and the leg and hip work is incredible. I wished I could add a video, so you could see it properly and hear Marimba music, which somehow always puts me into a good mood. It was also very nice, when Ropafdazo and Michelle did some improvisational dancing and some ladies from St John Ambulance joined the dance floor. Unluckily, some of the more prominent members of the gathering had left by that time and missed all the fun. That however didn't stop us from enjoying the spectacle, even though I stayed safely put behind my camera. ;)
Ropafadzo, Michelle and a woman of St John Ambulance dancing
In the end, we were all exhausted, but after some nice lunch, which the St John Ambulance was nice enough to provide, we packed together the Marimbas (It is a lot of work to build them together in such a way that they can endure the rhythmic and intense playing of the instrumentalists). The trip back in the bus was spent in an euphoric mood with many more songs. I really would have liked to know, what the people who we passed on the street thought about us ;)
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