mweshi

Live jazz is hard to come by in Lusaka on a weekday, let alone jazz being played by one of Africa’s jazz legends for a great cause! Imagine my surprise when I heard that Hugh Masekela was playing at the Lusaka Golf Club on Wednesday night while having drinks with friends over at our favorite spot after what had already been a busy and hectic week.

A couple of friends had been talking about some tickets they had for this “music gig mid-week,” last weekend but they didn’t quite explain the magnitude nor the cause behind it; I figured it would include the regular lineup of guys I’ve heard playing ad nauseam over the past weeks so I wasn’t too bothered about it. The concert was set for 8PM and I was being told about Hugh playing around 8:30PM. Almost shot myself in the foot by thinking he’d be in town for the week, with the SADC summit currently taking place, and I’d be able to catch him on Friday night or something. In retrospect, I can only imagine what insults I would have been hurling at myself had I missed the concert.

After learning that it would be a one-night-only event, I went along with my friends and it was definitely worth it! Hugh played all his splendid hits to a very ecstatic crowd and everyone left the venue on a hump day high when the band finished playing around 12:30AM.

It was only when we got to the Golf Club that I learnt of the nature of “the gig.” The “African Solidarity Concert” was organized by the Darfur Consortium, an African and International Civil Society Action for Darfur of which Mr Masekela is a Goodwill Ambassador.

Proceeds from the concert will go towards

supporting the efforts of the women of Darfur to empower themselves, their families and their communities through support for the Belil Internally Displaced Persons Women’s Community Centre, in South Darfur

The Darfur Consortium

Very glad I went as it was a worthwhile mid-week outing. Good thing I also had my cam handy, more shots of Hugh on Flickr!

On Friday last week, I visited the Henry Tayali Visual Arts Council recently to check out an exhibit that I heard about over the radio. The artist exhibiting his pieces is none other than Lawrence Yombwe, one of Zambia’s prolific painters. His “Aesthetics for All” exposition is a revelation of his experiences and travels inspired by the Mbusa (initiation classes which cover such diverse topics as good governance, justice, love, hygiene, and respect for all) culture of the Bemba ethnic group. Mr. Yombwe’s paintings of acrylic on hessian have become a trademark of his work which has been collected by many prominent businesses and individuals in Zambia and around the world. This was the artist’s 11th solo exhibition and it ran through the month of July.

On display were paintings such as:

Mundu, Extended Family, Escort, and What is corruption?

The paintings also reminded me of an exhibition I had the chance to check out in 2004 called “Schematic Tantrums” by Kenneth “Zenzele” Chulu, another prominent contemporary artist in Zambia. Zenzele drew his inspiration for the paintings from rock art found around Zambia.

This past weekend I had the opportunity of participating in a day long medical outreach with a few members from my Rotary club, Maluba. We traveled to a remote area given to the Anglican Church by government about 68km from Lusaka, called Kansenga. Maluba in collaboration with the Anglican Church of Lusaka is working on building a clinic in the Kasenga settlement with the involvement of the community in the building process.

Saturday was the groundbreaking day and we traveled to the settlement with medicines donated to our club by businesses and clothing donated from Japan. We also carried some maize meal (used in making Zambia’s staple food nshima) for the orphans who live within the same community.

The situation is quite dire for the people of the Kasenga settlement. To get any sort of medical services or attention, people have to walk 25km to the nearest clinic in Kasisi; the catchment area has about 2000+ people who need assistance; most of the people suffer from malaria,conjunctivitis, anaemia, worms, etc.; on our way back to Lusaka around 7PM, we had to take a young mother and her sick baby into the city so she could medical attention for the child. I sat next to the mother and child in the car and every time the baby’s head rested on my arm, my arm felt intensely hot, the baby’s temperature must have been close to 40 deg. Celsius. Our rotarian doctor suspected it was meningitis hence the urgency in referring the mother and child over to the UTH (University Teaching Hospital) in Lusaka for urgent medical attention for the child.

By the time we left Kasenga, we had registered, administered medicine, vitamins, and referrals as well as clothing to about 255 people from the community. For me, this was one of the most fulfilling days I have had as a rotarian and seeing the smiles on the faces of the people there in the midst of all that goes on around them on a daily basis was quite a humbling moment.

Kasenga is one of our club’s new projects for the year, though we have a few other projects including a school (Bauleni Primary School), a clinic (Bauleni Clinic) both of which the Maluba club helped in building, and the Bauleni SWAAZ family support home for orphans who’s parent(s) died from HIV/AIDS that we support monthly by giving food and clothing.

You can view a few more photographs in my Zambia photoset on Flickr