Welcome to blog number 5! Brace yourselves this is a long one............
What a final couple of weeks in Zambia! Sorry we haven’t written for a while, but we had such a busy final few weeks with the festival, and since then we have traveled to Kenya………more about that to come in the next blog.
The last 2 weeks of our time in Zambia we were busy making all the final preparations for the festival week, and putting the finishing touches to the costumes and carnival structures. The giant cockroach finally left our garden and headed to Barefeet HQ in Longacres, where it was used by the Barefeet team and Children’s Council to practice their performance ‘Along Comes a Cockroach’. On the Thursday of festival week, they set off with the cockroach on the back of a canter to perform the piece in 4 compounds. Most of the Barefeet performers were underneath the cockroach body, so all you could see was a giant cockroach which appeared to be drumming and singing! Although we weren’t able to see it in action ourselves (we were busy setting up Ec--World), we heard it was received well by people in the compounds and was the starting point for a lot of discussion about Climate Change. When it came back it was a bit battered to say the least!
Sunday was spent collecting and transporting all the big structures to Mulengushi Conference Centre, where the UNICEF Children’s Climate Conference was due to start the next day. The only hitch was that we managed to lock ourselves out of our house, which meant not only couldn’t we get to some of the costumes which were in there, but also we had to stay at a friends house that night until we got the keys the next day – not what you need on one of the most stressful days of your year! We spent the evening setting up the exhibition of children’s designs and photographs of the workshops at Mulengushi Conference Centre.
With the help of African Dance Factory we set off on the back of the canter to one of the centres we’d been working with to collect some banana leaves to use in Eco-World later on in the week. We also took a trip to City Market with Ndala AKA ‘Peggy’ to find a new outfit for Peggy’s appearance in the fashion show. We had lots of fun getting Ndala to try on women’s clothes and wigs in the market, much to the surprise of the shop owners who assumed it was all for one of us. We finally found a nice red negligee, with as Ndala liked to say “a lot of comedy value”, and he pulled it off brilliantly in the fashion show!
Tuesday was all about the Fashion Show! A chance to showcase the costumes and big structures the children had spent weeks making for the carnival. After a late night on Monday making sure all the costumes were ready and in place, Tuesday morning was spent finalizing the running order, music and logistics of getting around 200 children to Mulengushi Conference Centre on time for rehersals. By the afternoon everyone had arrived and we did a dress rehearsal, the first time all the children, performers, music, lighting etc had been together in the space! As well as the 5 centres we’d been working with, the children from Ngombe Community School came and it was lovely to see them joining in with the children and young people from the other centres. It was a long day for everyone, and by 7.30pm the show began with a fantastic performance by African Dance Factory, who wowed the audience with their brilliant acrobatics! We are still always amazed by their fearless acrobatics, one of which includes their youngest member Thomas being used as a human skipping rope!
The 200 children participating in the Climate Change Conference watched as each centre and Ngombe School took it in turn to strut their stuff on the enormous circular catwalk to their favourite Zambian songs! They all looked brilliant, and both of us felt so proud, seeing all their hard work showcased in such an amazing venue! They really deserved it! The Barefeet facilitators pulled the show together on stage with MCs and bursts of performance, while we watched from backstage frantically making sure the costumes and music went to plan…ish! With songs from musician ‘Funti K’ to finish, by the end of show the audience invaded the stage to dance!
No rest for the wicked as they say though…………Wednesday was CARNIVAL DAY! The finale to the Children’s Climate Conference which ended that afternoon, and the main event of the Barefeet Youth Arts Festival! After a later than planned start, around 1500 children and young people set off from Mulengushi Conference Centre in costume and facepaints with drums, banners, the giant cockroach and several Animafwafwa’s made by a group of Zambian artists and the children. It was a huge burst of colour and noise like nothing Lusaka had seen before! The children were dancing, singing, smiling and running through the streets headed for the Italien School in Longacres. The route had to be altered at the last minute as the police wouldn’t allow us a permit to use the usual and main road (Great East Road). The children we undeterred though, lead by stilt walkers from Mutunzi centre and African Dance Factory doing acrobatics in the middle of the street, the traffic was stopped and people stunned by the procession of children chanting “Go Green, keep Lusaka clean” and “Get out of your cars and walk with us”! As well as all the centre’s Barefeet and we worked with and Ngombe Community School, children and young people came directly from the street to join the procession. This was their day, a day for them to be seen and their voices heard, and we felt very privileged to be a part of it again.
We made it to the Italien School just before it got dark, welcomed by fire breathing from Gift who was perched in a tree. After a few short performances, the sound system went on and boomed out all our favourite Zambian tunes! We danced with the children until their buses arrived, as usual outdone by their fantastic dancing skills! It was great to see the children and Eunice (the teacher) from Ngombe Open Community School having such a good day - they were surprised to see the muzungu’s dancing Zambian style! After a long but brilliant day we transported all the Animafwafwa’s and costumes back to Barefeet HQ ready for the next stage of the festival.
Thursday was spent setting up Eco-World at the Lusaka High School ready for the children’s performances on Friday and Saturday. Eco-World was an installation designed so the children had to enter the building through one of two doors, depending on their answer to a question about the environment. With two Barefeet facilitators acting as bouncers on the door, they asked each person as they arrived a question about how they look after their environment, or how they should i.e “what do you do with your rubbish?”. Depending on the answer given the person had to enter the ‘Good’ or ‘Bad’ side of the installation.
The ‘Bad’ side was full of rubbish on the floor, a broken globe, hanging red and black fabrics, and scary performers who obstructed the way and shouted at you. The children’s reactions were great, some of them couldn’t wait to enter and see what waited inside for them, and some of them nervous to enter after hearing their peers scream inside! The ‘Good’ side on the other hand, was bright, colourful, peaceful with no obstructions and friendly performers to guide you through. The idea was to give all the children a different experience as they entered, depending on how environmentally aware they were. It worked really well, and it was great to see something we had installed brought to life by the performers!
After the children’s performances on Friday, the Barefeet facilitators performed their play ‘Tujuka Must Die’ outside at Fountain of Hope Children’s Centre. We’d heard so much about this play and we were so pleased we finally we got to see it! Watching by candlelight with all the children from Fountain and around 200 children who had come to Lusaka from the Copperbelt, this was a really special evening with a lovely atmosphere!
And finally………the last day of the festival………at Munda Wanga Botanical Gardens! A lovely end to a very busy week, all the children from 25 centres and the Copperbelt came to the botanical gardens for the day for prize giving, performances, swimming, and dancing! Apart from some face painting we had the chance to spend most of our time catching up with the children and learning some new dance moves! One of the children gave us a guided tour around the animal section in the gardens, including lions, monkeys and crocodiles………apparently none quite so scary as our purple leopard faces! Sadly at the end of the day it was time to say goodbye to all the children, especially those we had worked with closely over the past few months.
Two days after we sadly said goodbye to Barefeet and Zambia………until the next time!
Somewhere in between all this, we managed to fit in going to baby Alexander Mwamba Chanda’s baby shower, which was lovely and a day we won’t forget! Thanks to Grace and John for making us part of it, and letting us join in with all their family and friends on such a special occasion!
We’d like to say a special thanks to Ben for being a great volunteer, and letting us order him around for the festival week! To African Dance Factory for being so helpful and always having a smile on their faces! And last but not least to all the Barefeet facilitators for being so welcoming, fun, creative, and helping us to make all the visuals happen! We will miss you all very much!!!!!!!!!!!
We have been in Kenya for the last 3 weeks, visiting some fantastic organisations that we hope to work with in the future. There will be more on this in the next blog. Sadly our time here has come to an end and we fly home tomorrow. So for everyone we've met and worked with in Africa.........thank you so much and we look forward to seeing you again soon! For those of you in the U.K.........we'll see you very soon!
We'll be running workshops on Saturday 29th May at the Bristol Eco-Veggie Fayre at Harbourside, so come down, bring your kids and say hello!
Sian and Mia.xx
