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

Armed with a few thousand dollars, digital cameras, and some lights, Nigerian directors have created a $250 million industry, thousands of jobs, and a sense of hope on a continent better known for blight and despair…

- This is Nollywood website

While at TED in Arusha, I had an interesting conversation with three film directors from Nigeria about the state of Nollywood and what may done to improve the quality of film making on the continent. Andrew Dosunmu (photographer and filmmaker) and Newton Aduaka (winner of the grand prize at FESPACO 2007 for his film “Ezra”), both based outside of Nigeria and making films of a different caliber than Nollywood and with bigger budgets, and Bond Emeruwa a Nollywood-based filmmaker featured in Franco Sacchi’s documentary “This is Nollywood.”

The question put on the table was whether Nollywood movies can be made with a higher quality of production; Andrew and Newton challenged Bond that they could produce good quality feature films with the same budget, equipment, crew, and actors.

Now, I have watched a number of Nollywood productions some good-some poor and I appreciate the fact that a lot of them have showcased stories of concern to Africans by overcoming several barriers and embracing digital film production. Granted, Nigeria is a 10lb. gorilla in terms of the number of films produced every year and no country on the continent can compare. However, I still believe the production quality can be improved and streamlined even with the budgets some of these films are made on.

In an earlier discussion with Bond, we talked of some sort of capacity building projects for aspiring film makers from around the continent to travel to Nigeria to learn from Nollywood and with the experience of Nollywood and perhaps an improvement in production quality, we might have an extremely powerful pan-African film movement highlighting all of this rich continent’s great stories, kingdoms, cultures, languages, and civilizations.

I can’t recall the last time a feature film was made in Zambia, but it seems we’re on the way to having our very first feature titled “Bad T!ming.” While doing some research online, I came across a project that was started sometime last year to document the production of Bad T!ming on the Film Zambia website and apparently the film is now in post production. One film every two years is certainly a far cry from the 1,000 to 2,000 that Nollywood would have produced during the same time, but I guess it is a start…

since I posted on the blog. It’s been crazy and hectic as always. Trying to get one’s business off the ground is no easy task. But I’m happy to report that things are looking up and I have managed to get a few clients on board. I am actually having the best time of my professional life running my own business at the moment. It’s been a long time coming. It’s really amazing how little time one gets to do a lot of other things when running a business. Still haven’t managed to find a regular place to football :-/ Can’t believe it’s been over 3 years since I last played football on a weekly basis :-/ REALLY NEED TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THAT!

Just came from my good friend’s “matebetos,” for all you non-Zambians out there, it’s a traditional ceremony where a soon-to-be bride’s family takes all the different kinds of food she and the husband will eat in their home over to the groom’s family’s home. Enjoyed the whole ceremony, though I forgot my damn camera at home and only realized it when I was already at the function :-/

It’s been a crazy, beautiful, amazing, hectic and busy few weeks. Moved from Liberia in December. I’m now back in Lusaka, working on getting Zedspot Media off the ground along with a few other projects. Learnt quite a lot from the time I started working in Liberia in March of 2004 till the time I left! It was my first time ever in West Africa (only part of Africa I hadn’t been to prior to that) and I got to take in a lot of the culture, the food and of course made a lot of friends! I’ll truly miss the place. But it’s now time to get into the swing of things in the Southern part of the continent.I got some really amazing news when I checked my email only to find out that I had been awarded a TED Global - Africa: the next chapter fellowship!!! Talk about starting the new year on a good note. I’m really looking forward to the conference in Arusha this June and I can’t wait to absorb all the inspiration that’ll be oozing out of the great list of speakers they’ve got lined up.

Whooooa…nice and long…wait, short vacation Can’t imagine how fast 3 weeks went by so fast! I did enjoy myself though. Spent a week in Lusaka, where I also had the chance to check out the first Fashion Week event for Zambian designers! Really enjoyed the show and I wish the organizers and designers all the best as preparations for next year’s event are already underway and I’m sure it’ll be an even bigger event! Also, went down to Jo’burg for some shopping and partying for a weekend with my cousins. Returned to Lusaka for a few days & here are a few pictures I took along the way…

Blogging from Addis Ababa, it’s past one o’clock in the morning…just got into the hotel after my flight from Accra was delayed by two hours! I must say, Addis done changed since the last time I was here in 2000.

The first thing I noticed of course was the new Addis international airport…very nice, very very nice! Well done Ethiopia. It’s definitely bigger and better than the last time I was here; the design is definitely on par with some of the best airports on the continent…simply lovely.

When I was booking my flights this time around, I decided to take a break from the usual Accra - Narobi - Lusaka route and it’s good that I did that. Glad to be back in Addis even though it’s only for a few hours as I have to be back at the airport in the next 5 hours…was supposed to link up with my cousin and aunts had we arrived at the scheduled time of 9:30PM. Hopefully, the trip back to West Africa in a couple of weeks will give me more time to hang around the city albeit for a few more hours than I have now.

Will blog some more once I touch down in Zed.