Gabi Elkaim's diary from Zim - 5th May 2009

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 Mcklewayne, 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 whisky
flask which has been initialled 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
Yassou 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.