Art, theatre, Imire and Serbia

Have just finished painting my last piece for tomorrow's Wild Geese Art Festival and have framed and mounted about sixteen other pieces. This has been a lot of work. Not sure will sell anything and am tossing around prices in my head. People in Zim don't really have money at the moment though.

This week I have also been working for Conservation Travel Africa and Imire doing their bookings and invoices. Picking up on someone else's emails has not been easy and finding my way slowly. Conservation Travel Africa works with projects in Zim as well as Malawi, Mozambique and Namibia. Went from doing work on this on Friday to a play at the HIFA theatre week - an Irish one on James Joyce titled "Joyced". I think I needed to have read Ulysses to really follow and my brain was elsewhere in spreadsheets and bookings. Watched a second play performed by the same person titled "Olive Tree" which looked at Palestine. How the actress Katie O'Kelly kept two full one-person plays in her head for the same day of performance beats me.

Katie O'Kelly who performed The Olive Tree (and wrote it)

Just got an email from the founder of the Youth Encounter for Sustainable Development project and courses I went on in Switzerland about a six day project in Jazak, Serbia. It is to use art to address social change and is at a new centre for sustainable development and rural learning. CERUDA: CEnter for RUral Development and Applied Learning (www.ceruda.org)
I am very keen but it starts the day after my Mum gets back from England. I am playing with the idea of going to that though and then on to England to try work a bit there before my sister gets married. All just an idea. Will see. I need to email language schools next week and see if there is any work and what is possible.

For now I am going to sleep and get ready for what will probably be quite a long day tomorrow at the Art Festival.

HIFAring and mental health

Well saw both my therapist and psychologist last week and they both are pleased with where I'm at and that I managed to cope with CELTA. It has given me a boost to know I can do it. Still getting over having to quit my PhD but to have passed and survived CELTA has made me feel I can do it. Will see about pursuing science. Focusing on teaching for the moment. I start my part time job with WEZ tomorrow though. They want me to design a syllabus for Grade 6 and 7 on wildlife. Need to check what is already covered so I don't reinvent the wheel. Need to also start preparing for teaching in Oxford as I have to devise schemes of work for that.

My friend's kitchen tea and hen parties on Saturday were a success. Luckily changed the venue for the kitchen tea as it bucketed with rain. Many thanks to The Base Church for letting us use Touching Base. It saved the tea party!

With all my friends getting married and having babies it does make me ponder still being single. Met up with a good guy friend in Cape Town but he seems set on someone else and I do feel a bit like Eponine from Les Miserables. My therapist said I should tell him but I am afraid it might ruin our friendship. Also doesn't help that he is all the way in Cape Town, sigh. Would be nice to have a man in my life at this point. Got to just trust God's timing.

My friend's wedding is this Saturday. Praying it stops raining by then and that it is also dry for HIFA (Harare International Festival of the Arts) next week. I've booked to go to the opera, a tribute to Simon and Garfunkel, Will McNicol, Tangram, Bards on Bicycles doing MacBeth, Moringa Mornings and a few others. My wallet is a little emptied but thanks to a friend who is an amigo got a discount.

After HIFA there will only be 3 weeks till I go to Oxford via Dubai. I leave for Dubai on the 23rd of May and will be there till the 28th. I then fly to London and will be in Oxford for a few days before I head to France (Aigues-Mortes) for two weeks. I return to Oxford and will start teaching on the 22nd of June. Looking forward to it. Lots of work and festivities between now and then.

Dubai

Aigues-Mortes, France

To be a HIFA Amigo, or not to be a HIFA Amigo, that is the question

Taught my student from Azerbaijan this morning and then headed over to Queen of Hearts Coffee Shop. Whilst waiting for a friend I perused the HIFA (Harare International Festival of the Arts) programme and tried to decide what I'm going to see this year. Some of the shows are a little pricey at US$20 a shot. It works out that I only would get a $58 discount which does not cover the cost of an amigo card. The access to the Greenroom is tempting though. Need to budget.

Then had coffee with my Friend Lucy and we planned a little for another friend's upcoming hen party. I am not the most organised person - looking forward to the arrival of my partner in crime, the other bridesmaid as she is very on top of things. My friend gets married next weekend so next week will be busy.

Had lunch with another friend and compared HIFA bookings and I got some editing work from her. Then trundled off to pay ZESA - they still don't have any more prepaid metres which would make a world of difference. Then taught my Grade 7 student who has just returned from a family wedding in Pakistan. Got her to write about it and learnt a bit on traditions.

For the job in England I need to get police clearance, but I seem to have lost my paper ID. Went all the way to Rudd Street, where I originally had my ID processed, on the hopes that my metal disc might be there miraculously. Unfortunately the miraculous didn't happen or they didn't look very hard and I was told I needed to go to Market Square - well that pretty much means it's a lost cause. I think I'm going to have to get my ID done all over again. Just got to decide where and when and how much time I can sit and wait out the queue and procedure. Have heard Goromonzi isn't bad. Ho hum.

Liked these two quotes below.

"In many shamanic societies, if you came to a shaman or medicine person complaining of being disheartened, dispirited, or depressed, they would ask one of four questions:

1. When did you stop dancing?

2. When did you stop singing?

3. When did you stop being enchanted by stories?

4. When did you stop finding comfort in the sweet territory of silence?

Where we have stopped dancing, singing, being enchanted by stories, or finding comfort in silence is where we have experienced the loss of soul.

Dancing, singing, storytelling, and silence are the four universal healing salves."

~ The Four-Fold Way: Walking the Paths of the Warrior, Healer, Teacher and Visionar

To be or not to be

I'm back in Zim now and have been for a week. Spent a good week in Howick and a night in Durban and visited the Midlands Meander, rested, walked in the rolling hills and caught up with my friend from Switzerland, Fia and her Husband.

Won't lie, it has been a little depressing returning to Zim, as everything seems very run down and struggling to keep going. It has been good to see my Mum though and friends and my dogs were very happy to have me return.

I have some work that I've come back to. I continue with my Grade 6 student and then I now have a student from Azerbaijan. I got all excited thinking I could use my new CELTA skills but it turns out he is more fluent than I thought and wants to work on IGCSE English. Oh well, can do that too. I also might have some work with the Wildlife and Environment Zimbabwe group till I go over to Oxford.

Unexpectedly The Globe Theatre is doing a world tour and they did a one night only performance of Hamlet last night at 7Arts. It was really good. Tonight I'm going to the Improv Show at Reps which should be funny. Met up with a French photographer through Couchsurfing on Wednesday who is documenting people's living space in different countries. The HIFA or Harare Festival of the Arts program has just come out and is available here.

 To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?—To die,—to sleep,— 
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to,—’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die,—to sleep;— 
To sleep: perchance to dream:—ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despis’d love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would these fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,— 
The undiscover’d country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns,—puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?

Optimistic

This week I'm on a high as things are going well, I'm getting out and about and friends from overseas are visiting. I'm busy again which seems to be when I thrive. Took a personality quiz and if it's anything to go by I'm supposed to like to be on the go and kept busy. Saying that though did enjoy time out last weekend and getting my paint brushes out.

It is nice to have people from outside Zim visit as I have been feeling a little cut off from friends abroad. Would love to visit Cape Town and the UK but right now my budget won't allow it. Am adjusting to working full time again. It is the first full time job I've had since Switzerland. Sitting in an office till 5 is a bit of a challenge and having less time to do my own thing is a bit stiffling after working part time from home. It is nice to work in an office though and have work colleagues.

Looking forward to HIFA at the end of the month. It is the highlight on the social calendar for Harare. The program is available on here.

Following the international hype, Harare has produced its version of the Happy Youtube video. Love how it's captured aspects of the city what with the vendors, school kids and petrol attendants filling generators. Have a look if you haven't seen it on Youtube. It is bound to put a smile on your face :)