At the beginning of 2011 I wrote (a letter) to several people to launch a small personal initiative called The Teabag Project. Zimbabweans, as well as people who have visited Zimbabwe, are in love with many aspects of this country, including our fabulous Tanganda tea. In a personal effort to stave off the growing Facebook empire and the transformation of everything personal into digital, I posted a letter and included a couple of Tanganda teabags to several people asking them to brew a pot, take some time for reflection and write a few words to me.

Words about anything.

Here’s something from The Teabag Project (start yours and share the words!) …

I wanted you to know how happy I was that you sent a real, live letter. With a stamp. Licked by a human. And you licked the envelop. And complete strangers in a post office thousands of miles away touched it. Spoke other languages over it. Yeow….now I have your letter as an artifact of you.

I love writing. Real writing. The written word. I weep for everything we lost when we moved into digital. Gone are the psychologically revealing strokes, contours, tensions and flourishes of hand-written text.

I remember when I moved from Connecticut to California. I was thirteen and I had so many friends back then that I hated to leave. The love was so deep and tangible. The promise of letters and connection truly kept me alive. Literally, kept me alive. Those first few months in California and away from my support system were excruciating. I wrote letters with tiny gifts of nature in them. I survived each day in the hope of receiving in return, a pebble, sand, a bottle cap, flowers from the curb, anything to remind me of home. You could never get such subversive items through the mail these days.

And did we ever really live in a world nuanced enough to be able to embrace the idea that children just might send bulging, odd looking envelopes through the mail because that’s how they knew to throw a lifeline? Despite the sadness at our separation, I think what we expressed was truly ourselves, embodied in the words and the physical expression of our letters. I felt the words as agents of feelings and energies that just don’t travel through cyber space. I feel a better knowing of someone from a letter as compared to a email.  Ink on paper practically has a voice compared to the flat world of email transmission.

Daniel Maposa, Director of Savanna Arts Trust, spoke to me about his work in protest art in Zimbabwe. Click here to listen and read more . . .

Have you faced any political resistance to your work?
Quite a lot, especially during our formative years. We had artists who were arrested in 2007 & 2008 and some were beaten up. We then devised strategies of going around these problems. That is when we said communities should also be able to produce their own work; they should talk to their own issues, instead of us using a top-down approach. We have had events that were banned but we have always found a way out of this. If communities are doing it, it is difficult to ban because it is a movement from that particular community.

However carved up
or pared down we get,
we keep on making
the best of it as though
it doesn’t matter that
our acre’s down to
a square foot. As
though our garden
could be one bean
and we’d rejoice if
it flourishes, as
though one bean
could nourish us.

KAY RYAN, “The Best of It”

Kubatana goes Inside/Out with one of Zimbabwe’s best protest poets, Comrade Fatso:

Describe yourself in five words?
Umm. Not sure. Sarcastic. Maybe?

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
Never interview a sarcastic poet.

What’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever done?
Protest poetry in Zimbabwe.

What is your most treasured possession?
My wit. Sorry is that arrogant?

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Monday morning.

Do you have any strange hobbies?
Democracy. And Crocodile Fishing.

What do you dislike most about your appearance?
Sadza stains on my jeans after lunch.

What is your greatest extravagance?
Alcohol.

What have you got in your fridge?
Alcohol.

What is your greatest fear?
Alcohol.

What have you got in your pockets right now?
Alco.. Hold on. Umm.. Is this a security check?

What is your favourite journey?
One that entails a car, a road, no roadblocks, no motorcades and a destination with water. And alcohol.

Who are your heroes in real life?
Dambudzo Marechera, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Mbuya Nehanda, Fela Kuti. You really gotta be dead to be my hero in real life. But I make exceptions.

When and where were you happiest?
2am on Saturday. In my mind.

What’s your biggest vice?
Miami.

What were you like at school?
Like I am now but younger, broker and wearing a crappy red blazer.

What are you doing next?
Clicking ‘save’.

4  April, 2011

ZUJ alarmed by increase in politically motivated violence against journalists by Zanu PF and  MDC T

The Zimbabwe Union of Journalists, ZUJ, would like to express its shock and alarm following the increase in politically motivated attacks against journalists by officials and supporters of the main political parties, Zanu PF and the MDC T in the coalition government.

We are deeply concerned that the spokesperson of the Movement for Democratic Change led by Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, Nelson Chamisa, who is also a government minister, verbally abused  freelance journalist, Comrade Nkosana Dlamini at a Press Conference held at the party’s headquarters, Harvest House recently.

Chamisa accused Comrade Dlamini of ‘bringing  Zanu PF proganda to Harvest House’ after he had asked Prime Minister Tsvangirai a question.

Cde Dlamini has indicated in his letter of complaint that the act amounted to harassment.

The Union is  concerned about the safety of our members when senior party officials appear to incite their supporters against journalists.

A few days after the incident, Cde Xolisani Ncube, a journalist with The Daily News  was assaulted  outside the MDC’s offices and had his camera stolen  by the party’s supporters while on assignment. As a Union we strongly condemn the attacks against journalists and  demand that the MDC T leadership should guarantee the safety of journalists at their press conferences and their forth coming congress.

ZUJ would also like to condemn in very strong terms, the beating up of Cde Priviledge Musvanhiri, a freelance journalist and the theft of his professional equipment by Zanu PF supporters in Harare. Musvanhiri was punched and had his recorder stolen by Zanu PF supporters while Cde Clarkson Mambo of New Ziana was man handled  by the same Zanu PF supporters.

We call on the Zanu PF leadership to warn its supporters to desist from  attacking journalists. Equally, we demand that Zanu PF should guarantee the safety and protection of journalists while on assignment at their functions or anywhere else.

As we approach the referendum and the elections, journalists will become more vulnerable to attacks by politicians and party supporters.

We call on the two main political parties to declare zero tolerance against journalists or any Zimbabwean citizen.

Foster Dongozi – ZUJ Secretary General

The Granta Book of the African Short Story introduces a group of African writers described by its editor, Helon Habila, as ‘the post-nationalist generation’. Presenting a diverse and dazzling collection from all over the continent – from Morocco to Zimbabwe, Uganda to Kenya – Habila has focused on younger, newer writers, contrasted with some of their older, more established peers, to give a fascinating picture of a new and more liberated Africa.

Disdaining the narrowly nationalist and political preoccupations of previous generations, these writers are characterized by their engagement with the wider world and the opportunities offered by the internet, the end of apartheid, the end of civil wars and dictatorships, and the possibilities of free movement around the world. Many of them live outside Africa. Their work is inspired by travel and exile. They are liberated, global and expansive. As Dambudzo Marechera wrote: ‘If you’re a writer for a specific nation or specific race, then f*** you.” These are the stories of a new Africa, punchy, self-confident and defiant.

Includes stories by:

Rachida el-Charni; Henrietta Rose-Innes; George Makana Clark; Ivan Vladislavic; Mansoura Ez-Eldin; Fatou Diome; Aminatta Forna; Manuel Rui; Patrice Nganang; Leila Aboulela; Zoë Wicomb; Alaa Al Aswany; Doreen Baingana; E.C. Osondu

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