Mama Africa, Miriam Makeba (1932-2008)

I awoke this Thanksgiving morning with the song of Wimoweh in my head. And I wanted to say thank you (Ngiyabonga)  to one of my heroines.  As a child I will always remember hearing Miriam Makeba songs in our household. It was our family's connection to South Africa, when we moved to London in 1954. Just five years later in 1959, at the age of 27, Makeba's passport was revoked for criticizing apartheid, she was banned from returning home, and did not see South Africa for the next 30 years. Described  as "our own nut brown baby" by the Manhattan Brothers and having the voice of a "nightingale"  Makeba not only brought to her work a presence of deep soul,  passion and a unique brand of music but she never forgot the struggle of her people in South Africa, often using her songs to tell the story. 

I believe it was her way to stay connected to the beloved country that she was tragically exiled from. It is an act of violence and abuse on every level to prevent a human being from returning to their homeland, and its impact-and  I am without a doubt, was a slow wearing away of the spirit. But despite the pain she felt, like Paul Robeson, the African American singer, actor and activist, who lived for many years in exile from the USA,  she never gave up, always stepping up to the opportunity to speak out, using her worldwide fame to bring attention to the abomination and iron cage of apartheid that kept her away from her family.  

Whether she was singing about the ghettos, celebration, hunger, or in many languages (her own being Xhosa) she inspired a sense of hope in us, and her music represents a cry from the heart, becoming the voice of South Africa.  She wrote in her autobiography, Makeba My Story: 

"It was the Superior Being that gave me a voice to sing with, but it was my mother and grandmother who gave me my first words to sing..."  

Her mother was a sangoma. Traditionally in South Africa a sangoma divines the future through the wisdom of the ancestors, heals the sick, and guides others around them. In her book she tells the story of wearing the robe of her mother on stage , and every so often when she did she would not be conscious of the songs she sang. I myself find that in the practice of divining, I cannot remember what I said. It is the ancestors working through me. A friend of hers who knew about sangomas and the spirit of amadlozi suggested that the amadlozi were stealing the show! She thought that like her mother she too was possessed by spirits, and she then wondered about her only child.  Her own pain around her daughter, her disappearances, her sickness and final death caused Makeba  much grief and worry.  She finally consulted a sangoma. Makeba's own belief was that it was the enforced exile upon her and so her daughter, among other things, that contributed to her daughter's sickness.    

She was a committed Pan Africanist who was welcomed anywhere in the world. After one of her four husbands, (who also included Hugh Masakela) Stokely Carmichael, the radical civil rights campaigner who fell into trouble with the authorities in the USA , she opted for exile in Guinea.

   
Mama Africa died of a heart attack  (or was it a broken  heart) after performing on stage, at the age of 76. She was a mother and a grandmother and was loved the world over. I can only hope that it felt like the perfect world she describes in her book.

"Going on stage to sing is like stepping into a perfect world. All that matters is the music, I live for this. And the message the few heartfelt words that I say to plead for my people, this makes it even more perfect. The concert stage: This is the one place where I am most at home, where there is no exile.  If I die on stage I guess I will be the happiest person, because I will be dying like a soldier on the battlefield. "  (from Makeba My Story )

I have been struck by her autobiography, in particular her humility and shyness despite her world adoration and fame. This is a striking contrast in the few clips I have seen of her perform. She transmits confidence, boldness and a powerful presence that never showed her troubles.

Mama Afrika my personal invocation to you: "Welcome home Mama Afrika, may you rest in peace knowing you are free, you are on my ancestral alter to remind me of your strength, resilliance and courage in the face of struggle. Help us to remember to never give up. Be an ally to us when we are human and  vulnerable. You embodied grace, dignity, humility. Remind me of all of this. Nudge me to continue singing the songs of South Africa. They are the songs that speak of justice and freedom, which are rightly ours" 

 

  

Truth and Reconciliation-Xenophobia comes to remind us

"Breaking the Silence" Madelaine Georgette

I need to know what and how to do what they are doing

I need to know how to forgive

even when the cruel ones won't admit

they have been cruel

I need to join in this experiment of living compassion

so that my heart can open its wings

and at last be free

Everyone needs to understand the secret of this deep and honest way

It is the great mystery of compassion that awaits us all

Oh my African brothers and sisters

teach us with your soft talk of tribal spirit

how to eat the truth and bow to ourselves

Mark Nepo

marknepo.com

I was moved to write about this as I heard a black South African share that his people's trauma of apartheid is now surfacing and that there is much healing to be done. One wonders in the face of the recent xenophobia attacks, if in fact there has been much change in the new South Africa when the people are turning on their own brothers and sisters but calling it Xenophobia. It seems for me that the connection needs to be re remembered. Xenophobia is a fear or contempt of that which is foreign or unknown, especially of strangers or foreign people. It comes from the Greek words, xenos meaning "foreigner" "stranger" and phobos, meaning fear 

 Wikepedia  

  April 27 1994, marked the day that all people could vote in South Africa, Archbishop Desmond Tutu was sixty two years old and Nelson Mandela was seventy six! The lines that formed that day and the hours that they had to wait helped people to find each other. They discovered not a Colored, a Black, a White or an Indian. They found other humans who had the same hopes, dreams and concerns. They found fellow South Africans that shared a common humanity. Ubuntu

However few sections of society in South Africa were left untouched by violence in the final decade of South Africa's last white government. South Africa in an effort to rehabilitate their nation, established a great national experiment, the Truth and Reconcilliation Commitee. "Our nation sought to rehabilitate and affirm the dignity and personhood of those who for so long had been silenced, had been turned into annonymous, marginalized ones. Now they would be able to tell their stories, they would remember and in remembering would be acknowledged to be persons with an inalienable personhood." Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Tutu's book "No Future without Forgiveness"  is a personal memoir of his chair of the TRC  

Ubuntu he says was at the heart of the TRC's labors and it sums up Tutu's philosophical framework for addressing apartheid, its truths and its beginnings in the reconciliation process. He believes that at the foundation of human rights is Ubuntu and without it, it cannot stand.

When Ubuntu is at play it shows us the interdependance by which we are inextricably bound, so aparthied showed that in evil we are too inextricably bound. To dehumanize another inexorably means that one is dehunmanized as well. The promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act brought the Truth and Reconcilaition Commission into existence. It was established in 1995 under the manadate of Tutu to examine the crimes that were comitted during apartheid between 1960-1994. It examined a South African past and it began a remarkable process of national healing and reconciliation.

Over a two year period it took more than 20,000 statements from individual victims of human rights abuse, and received more than 7,000 applications for amnesty.

Many black South Africans were left enraged  that amnesty was  granted to the perpetrators of human rights abuse under South Africa's last white government simply because they made a full confession of their crimes.  Others found healing in the ability to forgive the torturers and murderers  of their loved ones. Knowing how and where it had happened somehow eased  the deep dark wounds of the Apartheid Era. 

 

"A Human Being Died That Night" Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela is an account of a Mass murderer, a commanding  officer of state sanctioned apartheid death squads, who is currently serving 212 years in jail for crimes against humanity. Gobodo-Madikzela who grew up in a black township in South Africa  served alongside Desmond Tutu as a psychologist on the Truth and Reconciliation Committee.  She enters Pretoria's maximum state prison to interview the man called "Prime Evil" and she embarks into a deep journey where she witnesses the complexities and paradox of what it means to be  human as she delves into the darkness of his evil  and unravels the remorse and apologies surrounding his atrocities of the murder of black Africans. The book opens up a chilling question in the wake of the xenophobia issues that are present in the New South Africa where people are turning against their brothers and sisters who are in the same situation. What does it mean when the incarnation of evil is as frighteningly human as we are? 

COSATU:the Congress of South African Trade Unions wrote on May 30,"COSATU has done everything in its power to give voice to the voiceless and speak out against the intolerable levels of unemployment and poverty in South Africa. "It is therefore shocking  and disturbing to see that some workers and residents of poor communities believe that these problems are caused by foreign nationals and that they are attacking,  robbing and killing those foreigners they believe to be responsible, who are themselves victims of the same unemployment, poverty and crime "   

Only by remembering the past can people look to a better future-truth however accompanies pain- and in the light of today's xenophobia it is a reminder that reconciliation may be a distant dream, a fading hope in the new South Africa. How can reconciliation  truly begin when the   promises to eradicate poverty, unemployment and find money for HIV and AIDS have been broken. Betrayal after trust and hope is indeed a deep wound  and when the wound has been unattended as it has in the New South Africa where the trauma of apartheid becomes the dis-ease then we are simply deepening each cut by adding layer after layer of suffering. The Black South Africans are a strong and resilient people but human and there is only so much humans can take. Yet in one of the richest countries of the world there is still not enough. Are they really fighting the strangers who are like them or are they fighting the deep betrayal that festers in their bones. As my South African brother said "There is much healing to be done" 

The beautiful image is a series of artwork inspired by Madelaine Georgette inspired by the TRC

www.studiogeorgette.com/image/specialexhibitionsTRC.htm

Orphans on the grave of their parents lost to AIDS- South Africa

 Mme Ma Africa (Sotho)

Dikhutsana

Difeng Marobalo

Ditlatsuha Ditsamaya

Mother of the Nation/mother Africa

be kind to the orphans

give them a place to sleep;

they will be gone tomorrow

" Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man -made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings.' Nelson Mandala, Former President South Africa

 

I have recently completed my first day working at a needle exchange program in Oakland. It was a deeply touching experience. Men women and youth, most who were homeless, came to talk, drink coffee, eat breakfast cereal and exchange their needles for clean ones, and refresh their condom supply.  We were deep in the heart of East Oakland, where a young man who was a resident of the homeless shelter where I work  was recently caught in gun fire while riding his bike in the streets of his neighborhood. Where last year a young black man shared with me that he was too scared to leave his house for his Dialyis treatment for fear of being shot, he has since passed his diabetes and kidneys finally took his life, he was 24 years old.

 Mostly, each one that shuffled up was black. I asked a man how he was doing as he stood resting by a the fence trying to catch his breath his eyes weeping with a white liquid that oozed from the sides of his eyes, his fingernails so long they curled over the tips of his fingers, where the dirt ingrained behind the nails constantly reminded him of the squalor of nights sleeping on the sidewalk. "Blessed" he replied as he squeezed a toothless smile. I turned away so he would not see the tears that caught me by surprise, the ones that catch you in your throat when the suffering you witness daily is pushed into a recess, but without warning they overflow. His girlfriend came to stand by him they spoke gently to each other and leaned into the bond they shared maybe they were in love and maybe the bond was their addiction, whatever it was it bound them together for the moments when they were coming down.  She asked about her HIV results while he drifted into a stare that is borne of years of shooting up looking for that high- the first one,  when you knew that you were golden. They say if you have not experienced that golden moment you die inside, maybe thats what she did, make him feel like gold. Some may say we are encouraging the drug addicts to continue. With HIV and AIDS so rampant any  choices made to prevent the spread of disease and the education that accomapanies it is a wise and responsible choice. 

  They approached the table with a trust of knowing there was no judgement in the eyes that served them. My heart cracked open each time I looked into the face of suffering, poverty, homelessness and addiction. Each set of eyes held mine sometimes only briefly and what I saw was the longing in the mirror to the lost soul, the eyes behind the eyes. Children do not hide this, they dont know how to. Their eyes are raw, in your face, they tell of loss, of poverty and longing and ask what is happening in this world. 

In contrast that night I drove to Napa Valley with my choir Vukani Mawethu to perform at a fund raising Benefit for The Ubuntu Education Fund. ubuntufund.org.  We walked into a three million dollar property where young wealthy people were gathered for the common purpose of raising money for an HIV and AIDS Project in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.  Fine food and excellent wine was served, it was another world. They spoke about Ubuntu and how the 21 one year old white South African young man who in 1998, founded with a black man Ubuntufund where together they now provide life saving education and health resources to over 40,000 children. They go into the townships that remind us on a daily basis we are here, in poverty and have a right to live in dignity.         

Recently the REV, Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama's former pastor, blamed the government for "inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color." Wright is not the first to say that AIDS originated in the White House,  others have attributed the epidemic to a laboratory accident, and  malnutrition.  Among the most popular and pernicious theories is that AIDS is not a caused by a virus at all. Peter Duesberg, a biology professor at University of California-Berkeley, has argued that drugs and promiscuity are the principle causes of the disease and that in Africa it is malnutrition.

The inability to fight HIV and AIDS is connected to a deficient immune system so the ability to fight the disease becomes almost impossible for those who live in poverty, and with malnutrition fewer people are  likely to survive. In addition as in South Africa water and clean water are also major factors in the poverty war and the fight against aids. Money in terms of fund raising is not necesarily being used for these issues. We are told it is being used to buy drugs to fight the disease. The drugs are so expensive that the Africans cannot afford to buy them so the pharmaceutical companies continue to get richer while the water stays dirty, and we continue to have blood on our hands each time another child dies.  I know many people here who have been  living with HIV for years. They are not in poverty or have malnutrition. 

The question remains where did it come from?

 Two years ago when I visited Credo Mutwa  in Kuruman, in the middle of the bush. He said to me "Madam, Africa is dying from this disease, AIDS is a man made disease. I ask that who ever is killing our children , to please stop!"   In an interview with Rick Martin, Mutwa  quoted the name of the man, a Dr. Robert Gallo. Martin referenced the following: See Len Horowitz's monumental book Emerging Viruses: AIDS and Ebola; Nature, Accident or Intentional for a wealth of documentation placing Dr.Gallo longtime head of the National Institute of Health (NHI) and National Cancers Institute (NCI) Section on Cellular Control Mechanisms, at center stage in the AIDS arena.  Evidence suggests that he created the AIDS virus about a decade ago before he received a lot of political accolades for having discovered it. The text hauntingly dissects the potential motives and administrative mechanisms underlying the prevalent belief that HIV and Ebola may have been deliberately deployed and that the AIDS epidemic may be accomplishing what was desired.

Mutwa speaks with passion and desperation about the children of Africa. In sub-Saharan Africa there are close to 44 million people with AIDS , but the South African newspapers dare not print the true stories about AIDS. Bertrand Russell he states said that the Western nations would have to decimate Black people, using war, famine, and disease. And this has happened.

I encourage you to read a fascinating article posted on Mutwa's website,  credomutwa.com/about/biography-09/    

In South Africa now more than one out of eight black South Africans is HIV positive.  Jonny Steinberg a Johannesburg newspaper columnist and author of the book "Sizwes Test"  A young man's journey through Africa's AIDS Epidemic recently reported that 800 people die of AIDS DAILY. His book is presented through the eyes of one man who he calls Sizwe Magadla, who is  30 years old and lives in Lusikisiki, Eastern Cape Province.  It is a rural black overcrowded slum. The area has a well stocked first rate AIDS treatment program and yet one in three pregnant women are HIV positive. In the book he unravels the layers of the complex social network that reveals the stigmas and realities of why people may not be willing to be treated. "There's an even deeper layer to people's resistance to testing and treatment" he goes onto say that as with  many indigenous people the sickness  is seen as something sent to you by those who wish you ill. If whites already took away so much farmland, mineral and wealth, the thinking goes, could not the very needle the white doctor or his nurses use to draw blood be what's spreading AIDS in the first place ? And if an enemy does attack you, what more deadly way than with an illness that seems connected to a mans potency and ability to procreate. Men are anxious about this the world over, but nowhere more so than when,  in desperate poverty they posses little else. This theory is not a new one, and when it comes to so many people especially the indigenous ones, then I trust the wisdom of the old ones.  

 Mutwa, and  Sizwe are simple humble men, Mutwa will be the first to tell you so, and they are also men who are profoundly insightful and sharp. I leave you with this question from Micheal Meade "What story are we in when those carrying the dream of life increasingly find themselves near the door of death?" mosaicvoices.org 

Ubuntu says my humanity is inextricably bound up in yours and I cant help but see in the eyes of the young ones in the above image, the question to me and you   "What have we humans done?"   

             

In Honor of the Mother Line

My mother is in the middle with her mother and two sisters

April 17, today is the annivesary of my mothers death , Doreen Marais, and I dedicate this blog to her and honor the mother line of my family and all mothers everywhere. What I know and love to remember about my mother was her strength and her peace making. A school teacher for some of her time on this earth, I know she loved to guide the kids in creative projects. As a young woman she was a strong runner something I inherited from her for a time. One story she told was when she jumped her first hurdle, she was running from a cobra who was chasing her! She kept our family together when it must have been a struggle to settle in a brand new alien land (London) from South Africa. She had an adventurous spirit and a wonder lust for travel. Every year she saved enough money from my father's low salary as a teacher, to travel all over Europe. She loved having family around her at all times infact she lived for those moments when we were all together.

I loved Easter as a little girl! My mother would curl my hair in ringlets with her finger, and dress me in a party dress, white socks and shoes and take me to Battersea funfair. She told me to never go to bed with a partner on an argument and if she were gay she would like to be with Ingrid Bergman! At Christmas when all our relatives gathered and at times there were as many as 25 she would insist that no matter where we were we had to come home in time for midnight on Christmas Eve and it was ok to bring all our friends with us. My mother carried the spirit of Ubuntu and the South African hospitality that she knew, it was extended to ALL who came across her path. She was a rock, a solid being. Her door was always open to any family member or stranger that happened to knock on the blue door with the black knocker. She was raised by the hand on occasion and in our family she tended to be the one to give out the punishment. If she hit us she would go and cry in her bedroom as it hurt her to do that.

She died of lung cancer 10 years ago today. I believe the deep grief she carried was for the loss of her life partner, lover and friend my father who died in his early fifties and the fact that as the years went on we all went our ways and the family nucleus that she loved so, became disconnected. My mother though was a pretty progressive woman, with a sardonic but sharp sense of humor and she loved to lose her self in the cinema, often leaving us all to sneak into a movie by herself. It was her way of finding some peace and solace, far from the "maddening crowd" which I know we could all be at times.

I don't remember her controlling us, her own love of adventure only served as a mirror for us to draw from and I certainly inherit that from her. Nieces and nephews often went to her to seek her counsel arond love, relationships and their own mothers. She counseled with love and compassion often teaching about the importance of forgiveness and tolerance her wisdom born out of many years of a curious match with my father, an introverted man of integrity and substance.

After she passed she left me a little money and I was able to return to the USA which I had visited the year before for the first time. It allowed me a years sabbatical and I returned to live, this has changed the course of my life, my soul work time and time again and for that I am deeply grateful. I stayed with a friend in Laguna Beach in a house overlooking the Ocean. One hot summers day I dozed off on the deck and was dreaming of her, she came to tell me she was alright. I awoke with a start to find a huge bird sitting quietly watching me, I believe it was her messenger.

Her mother, grandma Elizabeth was quite something else. A white skinned colored woman that sometimes laid the sharp end of the heel of her high heeled shoes on our unsuspecting buttocks. Her expression of rage was I believe due to the indiginty she suffered of having to leave her homeland because she refused to be treated inhumanely. She was always dressed immaculately and sometimes sat at the dinner table wearing a hat. Her head was cocked high with dignity. (see picture on right) She often used to tell me to hold my head up high. Aparantly I heard from a friend in South Africa who knew her, that, that generation were devoted to Queen Elizabeth, they wanted to copy her! Royalists and Queen groupies who dressed like her! I carry a second name of Elizabeth. These women were powerful in their way. I am honored that they now stand behind me in line as ancestors. I feel their strength, I carry their strength as do all my beautiful neices, their grandaughters, great grandaughters. They say when the mother dies your soul work begins -and so it was. I love and miss you.

Paul Robeson

A Hero For All Time

On Wednesday I had my singing debut at Oakland City Hall Rotunda with Vukani Mawethu. It was where the city of Oakland commemorated the 110th anniversary of the birth of Paul Robeson, world- renowned scholar, athlete, singer, actor and fighter for freedom, peace and social justice for all. There is an exhibition on until April 30,2008. http://www.bayarearobeson.org. Amongst all Robeson's achievements he was a scholar first and foremost and everywhere he went he spoke out strongly against injustice and for the rights of all working people throughout the world. He also spoke for peace among all peoples, including the Soviet Union. Branded a communist by the House UnAmerican Committee, his scheduled concerts were cancelled and in the 1950's the US Government banned Robeson's music from the radio and concert halls.

After revoking his passport and denying him the right to earn a living abroad they tried to erase him from history. He was a pioneer in promoting political and material support to the liberation movement of South Africa. On October 11, 1978, the United Nations bestowed an award on him posthumously in recognition of his great contribution to the international campaign against apartheid. In a message to the conference of the African National Congress he said of South Africa "I know that I am ever by your side. I am deeply proud that you are my brothers and sisters and nephews and nieces. We come from a mighty courageous people, creators of great civilizations in the past, creators of new ways of life in our own time and in the future. We shall win our freedoms together. Our folk will have their place in the ranks of those shaping human destiny"

In the 1930's he lived in England and it is there he studied his African roots, through history, cultures, languages and music of Africa. He added to his repetoire folklore and music of many nations often singing in their original languages. Robeson sang his way around the world to the elite, royalty and working people. He is known for, amongst many other songs, "Ole Man River " from Showboat, (1928) which he turned into a fighting protest song and removed the word nigger. He was loved by millions and he believed he had a responsibility to use his talents for the common good, often performing benefit concerts for social justice causes, civil rights, equality, workers rights, peace and democracy. He said "There truly is a kinship among us all , a basis for mutual respect and brotherly love ''He put forth a vision of what he called "the oneness of humankind" Ubuntu, and his son Paul Jr. remembers one of his principles as being " Succeeding without helping others is of little worth. As you climb help lift those left behind" and "A deeper understanding of one's own culture will lead to better understanding  of other cultures . There is only one race the Human one." 

Also performing at the gathering was Tayo Aluko who has written and produced a play about Paul Robeson. A Nigerian, Tayo lives in Liverpool and has brought the play for it's first tour of the USA. "Call Mr. Robeson" is being performed in Irvine, San Francisco Dearborn and Detroit. I also had the honor of meeting Tayo and seeing the play last night. Tayo plays Paul Robeson. It is currently a one man play with an accompanist Micheal Conliffe. Aluko, through stories and song portrays a deeply moving account of an introduction to Robeson's journey. I knew very little of Paul Robeson as a freedom fighter prior to seeing the play, but through Tayo's eyes, voice and dedication to telling the story of this amazing man, he brought to life for me a vivid and heart warming picture of Robeson's courage, strength and resiliance as well as his despair. Tayo's voice is rich and dark, like the man himself and it carries in it the promise of a new day as well as shedding historical tears, reminding us that the past connects us to the future. Our beloved ancestor Paul Robeson was definately in the house last night! Book this play near you now! www.tayoalukoandfriends.com Tayo, your friends in the USA welcome you back anytime, thank you for your work, we are touched by your gentle and beautiful spirit!

Sizongena~Coming Home

April 27, 1994 Voters for a free South Africa

This morning I went to my favorite cafe Arizmendi to partake in my ritual of decafinated tea and the best oat scone in the East Bay. I ran into a brother, an elder who I had seen a couple of times before but we had never conversed. I joined him at his table. A beautiful gentle spirit with salt and pepper dreadlocks. Our conversation began with him asking me what I had been up to, "singing" I said. He told me he had come up in a family of singers and musicians. He mentioned them all by name. except the elder brother. I was curious about that. Our conversation meandered into the fact that he had recently come across photos of his grandparents who are from St. Kitts. The line "one fine St. Kitts woman" came into my head from a song Taj Mahal sang, Clara (St. Kitts Woman ) which is a song about his grandparents " my grandfather married one fine ST. Kitts woman She would hold you love you and scold you. Making sure she could tell you everything she feel and now I feel the spirit that spirit deep down in my soul, make me think about my ancestors who lived a long time ago." We discussed the importance of knowing where we came from and that he plans to go to St Kitts for the first time. It reminded me of my own journey in finding my way home. Something kept me wanting to know about his elder brother~ yes- it was Taj Mahal, and I was touched by this man's humbleness in not wanting to mention his elder brother's name.

He talked about this upcoming change in the USA, a black man as president, was a long time coming, and I suggested that his ancestors had suffered and worked and struggled for the freedom of their children and grandchildren. And that it is their strength like the people of my homeland that have paved the way for us. We talked about the importance of knowing our home and who came before us and we lamented the fact that neither of us knew all our grandparents. He said if they can be strong so can I, and we parted having connected through song, story and our ancestors.

On saturday I went and saw a woman sing and read poetry. Charlotte Oneil " Mama C" is an x black panther that exiled to Tanzania. A powerful woman who sang about her having to leave her country of birth but landed in the mother land only to find that she cannot forget where she came from, even though she is a child of Africa and that it is important to go home. She now provides a multicultural experience and a community center not only for Tanzanians but also to provide an exchange program for the youth here in America to visit Tanzania as a place for them to return home and participate in the program and vice versa www.uaacc.habari.co.tz/ and we parted after connecting through song, story and our ancestors.

Coming home for me has been an amazing journey. Touching the soil of my homeland for the first time in 52 years re awoke a part of me that I had denied, had died and shoved deep down into a place I thought I did not want to access. I had planned to go in October of 2006 but suddenly I changed my plans and left in May of that year. I stayed with a cousin who I had not seen since I was three, he and his wife recounted many stories of my parents, they knew more about them than I did. Three weeks after I returned to the USA my cousin passed. And so he had stayed to pass the stories on to me... October would have been too late.

I did ritual on the land where we had lived as children bringing soil from USA and London to Cape Town. It is now a creche and school. I "felt the spirit deep down in my soul, make me think about the ancestors who live a long time ago"...... I announced to them that their great grand daughter had returned home. I inhaled the whispers in the wind of the ancestors that, came from Table Mountain, and I cleansed my face and feet and head in the Indian and Atlantic Oceans that meet at the foot of the town.

Every name I had heard somewhere from my family, and every view was familiar. I remember standing outside the house of my grandmother and looking down the street, it was though my bones were rumbling as I remembered, but I was also re awakening the pain of leaving my homeland and that even at three years old, somewhere I carried that memory in the cells of my body, but also what it must have been like for all those who had to leave their land and be exiled and worse still have their land taken away. To have returned but more important to re remember was traumatic and deeply healing all at the same time.

Remembering where we come from is important, touching the motherland is indeed a healing journey, and if you cannot do that, to know your ancestors is to know who you are. Millions of black and colored and white people stood in line for hours and hours to vote on April 27 1994 for a free South Africa. They stood for the first time in unity in Ubuntu, no one said you do not belong here, and it is to them we owe our gratitude, they stayed they protested and spoke out and, they taught us about truth, peaceful protest and reconciliation.... so that we can now~ come home.

In the Presence of a Great One

Baba Credo Mutwa with Mbali, South Africa May 2006, Kuruman

In May of 2006 I got on a plane from Cape Town to Kimberly to meet a stranger who lived in Kuruman on the edge of the Kalahari desert. I did all the things I was told never to do-travel at night in a car with a strange man. I was met by a young man who gave me a warm blanket. I climbed into his van which had NO heating, he was to take me to meet High Sanusi, Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa(Awakener of the Zulus) also known affectionately as Baba Mutwa. It was 11pm at night and we were driving 2 hours into the bush . Even the driver said "It's dangerous to be driving at this time of night" I should have heard alarm bells and seen red flags but I did not. Instead I clutched my faithfull, cowskin medicine bag asked all my ancestors to stay with me and I sat back in my seat with no seat belt and trusted. This young man played Whitney Houston singing "and I will always love you " He told me it was Baba Mutwa's favorite song. I really wondered what I was doing, no fear, just one of those magic moments when you realize you have just pushed yourself to the edge of life ! It was freezing . "its not supposed to be freezing in Africa !" I said and he reminded me I had arrived in winter. I smiled in the dark, a dream was about to come true it was exhilirating. As I drove into the village I saw large 9 foot wire sculptures that looked like martians but held a flame to light the way fuelled by paraffin. White rondaavals which I later found out were ancestors houses. I was met by Virginia, Baba Mutwa's wife, dressed in her Sangoma clothes, her hair studded with brightly colored beads. She welcomed me into her house and told me I was to stay at the hotel in town. The next morning I was picked up by the driver still playing Whitney Houston mixed with popular music.

The great man Baba Mutwa was standing in his yard by a stunning sculpture of Mary holding Jesus on her lap that he had fashioned. Virgina guided me to him. He is partially blind from the diabetes and a looming presence in his own way. His head moved in a way that seemed to be picking up transmissions, it jerked from side to side. "you have come a long way why are you here?" were the first words that came from his mouth. "To find out more about my ancestors" I replied.

Your name is Mbali. Baba Mutwa spoke quietly in a beautiful lulling tone (you can hear his voice in various interviews with David Icke and he always addressed me as Maam or Mbali ) I looked at Virginia and she translated my name. In Zulu it means the flower. From that day on they called me Mbali and after a just a few times of hearing that name it began to sound very familiar. I was renamed in the country that I was born.

There are too many links to post but I do suggest you try to read a cross section of them to get a true picture of this extraodinary Healer, Shaman, Educator, Storyteller, Diviner and Elder and holder of the history of Africa . He is counsellor to many heads of state, kings and queens including the Dalai Llama and an amazing story teller. At 82 years old he is a beautiful, gentle spirit, fierce with passion, partially blind but still building sculptures with the help of orphaned youth which he interns. They are as high as 8-10 feet tall. A remarkable seer, diviner that knows about the creation of the earth, that talks as though he has lived in those times and in some way he probabaly has, and a man that has knowledge about caves that are millions of years old and rivers that have no bottoms. He knows Africa, he knows about the old indigenous ones, he knows where you have been even before you were born and where you are going! When you sit in his presence you are in the presence of the other world, in the presence of someone great and remarkable and astonishing and he transmits information that leaves you wide eyed, and stunned. I was humbled by his humbleness.

In the four days that I was with him I recieved a divination.He also gave me some of his divination stones. I received several hours of transmission. It was a magical time and a deep honor. Baba has been through many tragedies, and with all this he, like many black Africans I met continue to carry the strength and resiliance of a people who has seen and experienced much suffering.

He also carries his traditions and Medicine with great honor, the neckalces he wears and hold from his ancestors, are said to carry the oral history of his people and there are few who can read them. He understands the importance of passing on the medicine and traditions, but as many medicine men/women of his standing, (he has the highest in the Zulu tradion that a Shaman can have, he is ostracized by some of his people because they feel that the oral traditions should be kept secret.

In addition his book "Indaba my Children: should be given a place in schools for children to read the history of Africa written through story. It is his determination to keep the rich oral tradition of South Africa alive. He believes Africa is dying and he believes that HIV and Aids are a man made disease. He teaches with love and he does not suffer fools. He is the genuine article, steeped in his tradition as a Zulu, his father a direct descendant of King Shaka (this he says with a smile) He is a genius that takes us in to the heart of ancestral wisdom and he extends ubutnu with a gentle spirit and humility. If you are interested in tours to meet with him, post a comment and I will contact you

Song as a Way of Life

Ingoma~ The Song

Unzima Lomthwalo

Unzima lomthwalo

Ufuna Madoda

Unzima Lomthwalo

Ufuna bafazi

Azikatali noma siyaboshwa

Sizi misel inkululeko

Thina bantwana base Afrika

Sizi misel inkululeko

English translation: "Oh we dont care if we go to jail, it is for freedom that we gladly go. A heavy load a heavy load, it will take some real strength. We are the children of Africa. It is for freedom that we are fighting now. A heavy load, a heavy load, and it will take some real strength."

This was a song of defiance and determination. It has been sung for many years and was also sung at the funerals of the victims of the Soweto Massacre in June of 1976.

A month ago I went to see a rehearsal of a mixed race choir who I heard sang freedom songs primarily of South Africa in Zulu, Xhosa, Sotho and English. They also sing spirituals and gospels. They are called Vukani Mawethu which means People Arise (in Zulu) www.vukani.com. After the first song I was very moved, it felt like a reremebering, but mostly I was touched knowing that this choir which was formed 21 years ago by the late James Madhlope Phillips, has sung out against racism and apartheid and contributed to the international effort to bring about democratic elections for the people of South Africa. In short I was humbled, humbled that they knew more about my country than I did, humbled that they have been doing the work I asked if they would allow me to sing in their choir. I, who knows nothing from alto or tenor who sings only in the shower and sometimes when I do my medicine work. They said yes and so I have been singing my little heart out and each time I sing, hear the songs and the languages, something inside me cracks open and another piece heals, not me, but for all those who came before me, because that's who I am singing to and for. Indigenous people say the song brings the spirit down! And I feel the ancestors rejoicing as they hear the songs. During the fourty years of apartheid when black people were denied the basic rights as Africans they would protest throughout the struggle with song. When a mother went out looking for a job, every day and was sent back empty handed, every day, she would return to her hungry children and sing a dirge to express how she felt. Music played a major part of their liberation.

Vuyisile Mini was a gifted actor, poet and singer, he is remembered for the songs he composed as well as their delivery, an ANC member who was hung, who went to the gallows singing freedom songs. The night before I left for my first trip home n 2006, I had the honor of meeting Hugh Masekela at Yoshis in Oakland. Since 1954 he played music that reflected the agony,conflict and struggles of his personal life and life in South Africa. But it was those struggles, and sorrows, passions and joys that inspired him to make music and influenced his songs. Mama Afrika also known as Miriam Makeba was banned from returning to South Africa in 1963 along with her records after giving an impassioned testimony before the United Nations Committee Against Apartheid.

"Where is the Way" Song and Struggle in South Africa by Helen Q. Kivnick, is a book

and language of the songs in South Africa. It captures the essential link between cultures, peoples strength and courage that helped them to resist oppression and it speaks loudly to the spirit of Ubuntu. Kivnick says it this way "The particular way these people sing -in overlapping parts that work, all together, to produce rhythmic and harmonic fullness-reflects a fundamental African social philospophy: an individual acheives wholeness only in interaction with others. In Zulu the full saying goes umuntu ungumuntu ngabantu ("one can only be fully human through relationships with fellow human beings") " And so it speaks to achievement and purpose being pursued in order to enhance the community as a whole. The author travels with her husband often being the only two white people in a sea of blacks into rural villages, prisons, townships, churches, and communities, sometimes seeking out a lone musician. Her descriptions invite you into the soul of the player, singer or song and how like a magician the performer(s) casts a spell on the people who grow and grow around them as they stop along the way to listen and join in. They are often in tattered rags or hungry, they have often walked three to four hours. She does an incredible job of showing the hope in the people who sing for freedom and a better tomorrow.

The people sing at births and deaths and funerals and weddings. They sing about the men who have left them to work in far away towns, they sing about their life in the village, they sing about the struggle and they sing about unity. She says "they sang in celebration of the pride that years of enforced servitude had not destroyed. And they sang to fan the flame of humanity, burning even inside the land of apartheid" Amongst the Africans, music permeates every cycle of life from birth to death, it's inextricable with the other world the spirit world which is intertwined with the people. It reinforces community as inseparable from the natural world and the individual and children learn about their folk lore through song and stories. 

"In black South Africa singing is inseparable from life. And life is in turn, is in turn inseparable 

 from the country's history, from the religious, political, economic and social currents that have washed the land ever since whites laid claim to that which blacks do not believe can be owned"

Helen Kivnick  

When I was in Africa in 2006 I visited the High Sanusi, Shaman Baba Credo Mutwa. His clinic had lost a patient to HIV in the village, and I was invited to the funeral. At least a hundred people showed up. I asked how the people got there, as I know they did not have cars, they had walked for miles, I asked how they knew about the funeral as I knew some did not have phones, word of mouth and I asked if all of these people knew this man and they said no but they were welcome anyway. I, a stranger and obvious a tourist was invited to sit in the front of this tiny church with the family which could not hold all these people. They sang and they sang and they sang in harmony in chorus with beautiful melodic rhythms. It was the best acapella I have heard. It was some of the best rhythm I had ever heard and they were some of the most moving songs I had ever heard. I did not know this man or understand the language but I became part of the community without suspicion or questions and I wept for a stranger and for the love that welled inside of me for all these people who welcomed me in their midst. They had not rehearsed, they did not know each other but they knew how to unify in song, they knew how to grieve together in song and they knew how to honor the death as a community in song. They believe that if you mourn a person for too long it weakens the spirit, so at funerals they did not cry they sang.

When I asked my Zulu grandmother last year what helped her family through apartheid she said " we were lucky, we had each other and we sang" Please watch Amandla, it is a beautiful story about the vital role music played in the struggle to eradicate apartheid in South Africa. It was the power of song when crowds were gathered that often scared policemen who thought the crowd was getting out of control sometimes opening fire. So praise to Kivnick who "gets it right"! Joseph Shabalala(Leader of Ladysmith Black Mambazo) praise to Vukani Mawethu for keeping the flame burning for others in the USA and praise to those people everywhere who lift up their voices open their hearts and continue to sing for their right to be free spirits. AMANDLA~Power to the people!

Blood Knot

On Tuesday and Wednesday night I saw a play at ACT in San Francisco called Blood Knot written by Athol Fugard, directed by Charles Randolph-Wright with music by Tracy Chapman. http://bloodknot-act.blogspot.com/. It is an important play that has resurfaced again. It was first written in 1961 by a white South African. In a clandestine engagement due to the apartheid ban, the play was first performed by Fugard and a black Jazz saxophonist Zakes Mokae in an abandoned button factory in Johannesburg. The audience crammed into an unventilated room and according to Mokae it was said of the audience "they were streaming in week after week to sit as if fascinated by a snake "

The play became a legend, a political event and a charged happening because of Apartheid. The play is about two colored brothers, one who is dark and one who is light enough to pass for white, who are immersed in an entangled relationship of love, race, discrimination and yes of course loyalty. It really portrays the tragic reality that was a result of apartheid, where families disowned their relatives because they were darker and if they could play white, would reap all the privileges that whites could. I have seen it happen in my own family. My grandmother had lillywhite skin, her name was Elizabeth named after the Queen and sometimes. My parents on the other hand, attended clandestine political meetings where they deliberately spoke in English, knowing that there was an Afrikaans policeman present (supposedly incognito) who could not understand what they were saying.

In the discussion before the play, Randolph-Wright talks frankly of how the play scares him, because, fifty years later it is still so painful and relevant. I had the honor to meet him. Whilst a beautiful man and an incredible director, I wonder if to some extent his fear restricted his direction in a way that it suppressed the powerful message in the first half. Robert Hurwitt, the San Francsico Chronical critic accurately describes his own perception of the director's projection. He says that Randolph -Wright "surrounds the acting with distracting directional flourishes, as if he did not trust the drama to carry its own weight" and I agree with him when he ends his piece with "As tempting as it may be to explain the play's relevance to America's overdue examination of race matters, ACT's Blood Knot succeeds best when it lets the play speak for itself"

The first hour did not really tap into the degradation, the poverty and the complex painful relationship of two brothers, one who can pass as white and one who is black. For those who knew nothing or little of the complexities of colored playing white within a family, it left one thinking that it was a playful exchange involving a woman. Even when they find out she is white, because of the snap shot she sent, it does not really delve into the painful realization that the black brother who had originally made contact with the woman, is now asking his whiter brother to meet with her. But the director, in his honesty of the issue scaring him, which in my humble opinion, may have inhibited the true guts of the issue, spoke to what is a reality for many around race, segragation and the depths we will stoop to forget who we are and where we come from so that we can "have a better life." -We do not dare go there, delve deep, but rather we shy away from something that is too painful.

The second half on the other hand, brings to the forefront and invites those who see it ( I counted 6 black people in the audience on Tuesday and maybe fifteen in a packed house on Wednesday) to go there -if they dare. That and Tracy Chapman's haunting music that raised the ancestor spirit of the mother who is constantly watching over the brothers, I feel did a brilliant job of portraying the mothers pain of this blood knot. The two brothers, Fugard and the direction took us on a journey that could be anyone's reality at anytime. It depicts the truth of Apartheid's madness, that as if the inhumaness and racism was not enough for these poeple, the color/tone of one's skin was thrown into to the mix, dividing families, and deciding your fate. There was even a term in South Africa, honorary whites, that decided what you were at any one time. I remember our famliy laughing at this absurdity! When you entered South Africa at the airport, and you were not white but looked white (as in say Chinese) they would have to look you up to see if you were honorary white.
And so our blood knot ties us together and cannot be untied, but it weaves through all in the interconnectedness of humans not just families, as in Ubuntu, - not white people, Africans, black people and colored people- ALL humans. Read or go and see the play, it is important. Hamba Kahle!

Freedom -Inkululeko

Sanibona

I ended the last blog with the price that people of colour and especially black people had to pay for their freedom in South Africa and I say black because, as I was reminded by a white woman from Africa "we" she exclaimed " are also Africans!" Of course that is a true fact. Although, were it to be so simple, we would not have had Aparthied. Were it to be so clear or true then we would all be seen as Africans, rather than racially segregrated by the colour of our skin and we would all live with Ubuntu. The people would not have been ALIENS in their homeland.

The Freedom Charter is a blue print for a future South Africa and it was declared at the Congress of the people in Kliptown, South Africa on June 26, 1955. It was a direct result of the harsh injustices to oppress Africans of Colour in South Africa and it contained 10 clauses. It is a collection of the people's collective expression and wisdom. When I first read it the first thought that struck me was that the black or coloured people who were born and lived in South Africa had to write a Freedom Charter in order to feel safe in their own land, in order to belong in their own land, in order to live, work be educated and die in peace in their own land.

My story goes that my eldest brother had asked my mother one day why he could not sit on a bench at the bus stop. It was after that incident (as well as many others) that we decided in 1954 to sell our land and my father and his mother in law left to search for a more humane life in London. My father was the only boy in his family and I now know that his having to leave his family (mother father and sisters, and his homeland) must have been a very hard decision to make. But as a principal in an Eastern Cape school as I was recently told, he wanted for us what he wanted for all his pupils - potential and possibility and he believed that we could get this from education and so we joined him in London in 1954. I recently spoke to an old friend of the family in South Africa and she shared that my father was loved by his pupils because he believed in each and everyone of them, it warmed my heart so much to hear this. I am discovering through stories that I am very much like him.

I am deeply grateful to my parents for the sacrifices they had to make for us and all those who come after me and my brothers, so that we may live freely with a free spirit. My immediate famliy live in London and are thriving with their own mixed marriages and beautiful children and grandchildren. My own journey home, I believe has begun to reawaken me from a deep sleep about knowing the truth of what happened. I am thrilled to be able to bring back more stories from a family I have discovered in Africa.

When I read the Freedom Charter which was written fifty one years ago, I am deeply saddened that South Africa is still a long way from being free and that the wound of Apartheid and the divisions that still exist are as deep as the San Andreas Fault. I can only live in hope that this tragically beautiful land can be recovered and uplifted and returned to those who have been and are still homeless in their homeland. That said I am deeply grateful to my parents for their courage and the sacrficies they had to make for us and all those who came after. Now at least I can return as a citizen, not as an alien in the motherland. Hopefully I can give back in some small way to those who stayed and worked and struggled for freedom from apartheid. It is to those gentle warriors, who who gave their lives that we may be free that I owe my deep gratitude.

FREEDOM CHARTER

Preamble

WE, the people of South Africa declare for all our country and the world to know:

That South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, and that no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of the people:That our people have been robbed of ther birthright to land, liberty and peace by a form of government founded on injustice and inequality;That our country will never be prosperous or free until all the peoplelive in brotherhood, enjoying equal rights and opportunities; That only a democratic state, based on the will of the people can secure to all their birthright without distinction of colour, race, sex or belief; And therefore, we the people of South Africa, black and white together -equals, countrymen and brothers -adopt this Freedom Charter. And we pledge ourselves to strive together, sparing nothing our strength and courage, until the democratic changes here set out have been won.

The People shall Govern!

Every man and woman shall have the right to vote for and stand as a candidate for all bodies which make laws;All the people shall be entitled to take part in the administration of the Country;The rights of the people shall be the same regardless of race, colour, or sex; All bodies of minority rule, advisory boards, councils and authorities shall be replaced by democratic organs of self- government.

All National Groups Shall have Equal Rights!

There shall be equal status in the bodies of state, in the courts, and in the schools, for all national groups and races; All people shall have equal rghts to use their own language and to develop their own folk culture or customs; All national groups shall be protected by law against insults to their race and national pride; The preaching and practice of national, race or colour discrimination and contempt shall be a punishable crime; All apartheid laws and practices shall be set aside.

The People Shall Share in the Countries Wealth!

The National wealth of our country, the heritage of all South Africans shall be restored to the people;The mineral wealth beneath the soil, the banks and monopoly industry shall be transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole; All other industries and trade shall be controlled to assist the well-being of the people; All people shall have equal rights to trade where they choose, to manufacture and to enter all trades, crafts and professions.

The Land Shall be Shared Among Those who Work It!

Restrictions of land ownership on a racial basis shall be ended, and all the land re-divided amongst those who work for it, to banish famine and and hunger. The state shall help the peasants with implements, seed, tractors and dams to save the soil and assist the tillers;

Freedom of movement shall be guaranteed to all who work on the land; All shall have the right to occupy land wherever they chose; People shall not be robbed of their cattle, and forced labour and farm prisons shall be abolished.

All Shall be Equal Before the Law!

No one shall be imprisoned, deported or restricted without a fair trial; No one shall be condemned by the order of any government official; The courts shall be representatives of all the people; Imprisonment shall be only for serious crime against the people, and shall aim at re-education, not vengeance; All laws which discriminate on grounds of race, colour or belief shall be repealed.

All Shall Enjoy Equal Human Rights!

The laws shall guarantee to all their right to speak, to organize, to meet together, to publish, to preach, toworship and to educate their children; The privacy of the house from police raids shall be protected by the law; All shall be free to travel without restriction from country side to town, from province to province, and from South Africa abroad;Pass laws, permits and all other laws restricting these freedoms shall be abolished.

There Shall be Work and Security!

All who work shall be free to form trade unions, to elect their officers and make wage agreements with their employers; The state shall recognize the right and duty of all to work and to draw full unemployment benefits; Men and Women of all races shall receive equal pay for equal work; There shall be a fourty hour working week, a national minimumm wage, paid annual leave, and sick leave for all workers, and maternity leave on full domestic workers and civil servants shall have the same rights as all others who work;Child labour, compound labour, the tot system and contract labour shall be abolished.

The Doors of Learning and Culture Shall be Opened!

The government shall discover, develop and encourage national talent for the enhancement of our cultural life; All the cultural treasures of mankind shall be open to all, by free exchange of books, ideas and contact with other lands; The aim of education shall be to teach the youth to love their people and their culture, to honor human brotherhood, liberty and peace; Education shall be free, compulsory, universal and equal for all children; Higher education and technical training shall be opened to all by means of state allowances and scholarships awarded on the basis of merit; Adult illiteracy shall be ended by a mass state education plan; Teachers shall have all the rights of other citizens; The colour bar in cultural life, in sport and in education shall be abolished.

There Shall be Houses, Security and Comfort!

All people shall have the right to live where they choose, to be decently housed and to bring up their families in comfort and secuirity; Unused housing space to be made available to the people; Rent and prices shall be lowered, food plentiful and no one shall go hungry; A preventive health scheme shall be run by the state; Free medical care and hospitalization shall be provided for all, with special care for mothers and young children; Slums shall be demolished, and new suburbs built where all have transport, roads, lighting, playing fields, creches and social centers;The aged, the orphans, the disabled and the sick shall be cared for by the state; Rest, leisure and recreation shall be the right of all; Fenced locations and ghettos shall be abolished, and laws which break -up families shall be repealed.

There Shall be Peace and Friendship

South Africa shall be a full independent state which respects the rights and sovereignty of all nations; South Africa shall strive to maintain world peace and the settlement of al international disputes by negotiation-not war; Peace and friendship amongst all our people shall be secured by upholding the equal rights, opportunities and status of all; The people of the protectorates- Basutoland, Bechuanaland, Swaziland shall be free to decide for themselves their own future; The right of all people of Africa to independence and self-goverment shall be recognized, and shall be the basis of close cooperation.

Let all who love their people and their country now say, as we say here:

"THESE FREEDOMS WE WILL FIGHT FOR, SIDE BY SIDE THROUGHOUT OUR LIVES, UNTIL WE HAVE WON OUR LIBERTY.