WEALTH OF IDEAS

In August, we launched Chisiya Writers' Workshop in Zvishavane, Zimbabwe. This was at Gwavachemai Secondary School in Mhototi, which is in the Mazvihwa area of Zvishavane district, near Mberengwa. It had taken over two years planning, but when it finally was going to happen, I suddenly didn't know what to expect. This was going to be the first workshop of its kind, a rural model writers' workshop that draws facilitators from the urban areas (which is where they usually live) and ask them to come stay in the village for a week, teaching the people in the area how to write. But once I had landed in Zimbabwe, the doubts began to intensify; I didn't know what to expect, plus I started having these questions: What if this thing fails? What if it is going to be a total disaster? What if we are going to encounter participants who did not care about writing? What if? What if? I had a few days to think about these things in Harare. I was even distracted by the international book...

I was in Zimbabwe at the beginning of the year. I travelled cross-country by car, and this was my first time driving in Zimbabwe, a vantage point quite different from the bus or combi journeys. I was also with nearly all the members of my US-based family, an experience which put us in situations of thinking we were meeting for the first time, or perhaps it was just that I excited by this whole thing of being back in Zimbabwe with family, with my American kids, so to speak. And we travelled, we lived the different Zimbabwes I grew up through . I use the word "through" because each stage of my life in Zimbabwe was like a passage to another stage. We were tired, but each stage of the journey was worth the effort. The word effort works here too; the condition of the roads made the travel or ride a bit bumpy. That road from Mandamabwe through Chivi, then the Beitbridge road itself too the fun out of the journey  somewhat, but one we go on the road from Ngun...