Winter 09 Newsletter

From Kutsinhira

Kutsinhira Cultural Arts Center, PO Box 26111, Eugene, Oregon 97402 USA http://www.kutsinhira.org/

Kutsinhira Update

Lynne Swift, Executive Director

There has never been a richer time in Kutsinhira’s history than the summer of 2008 for the number of Zimbabwean musicians and teachers who visited us in Eugene. We deepened our relationships with old friends Cosmas Magaya, Beauler Dyoko, Musekiwa Chingodza and Sheasby Matiure. We were delighted to meet and learn from our new friends Mawungira Enharira, Chiwoniso Maraire and Bongo Love.

Most of our friends are home now, and as we read about starvation and cholera in Zimbabwe, we know the grim realities of life there. I encourage you to check out the websites below for current news and ways you can help. In this newsletter, there is a compelling letter from Jaiaen Beck with information from Zimbabweans dealing with unimaginable challenges.

Zimbabwe News
http://zwnews.com/
www.zimbabwesituation.com
http://www.thezimbabwestandard.com
How You Can Help
visit: www.Ancient-Ways.org
www.tariro.org

Click on this link to grab 8 great minutes of Elaine Vradenburgh’s DVD Making Music, Building Bridges, the story of Kutsinhira.
Music, Building Bridges

Save These Dates!

Saturday, March 7: Kutsinhira Annual Meeting

Friday, April 3: Tariro Fundraiser featuring Boka Marimba, Dance Africa, and more! This fundraiser will be held in conjunction with a national AIDS conference sponsored by UO African Studies, UO Students for Global Health & FACE AIDS.

Zimbabwean Friends Update

Marilyn Kolodziejczyk, Zimbabwean Liaison

Our teacher and friend Cosmas Magaya recently departed the US for Zimbabwe and Bongo Love traveled to California and Boston before returning home. We really enjoyed their visit and the upbeat concert with Thomas Mapfumo at the WOW Hall. As John Mambira noted, "We Zimbabweans are happy people, no matter what tragedies may be going on." Sheasby Matiure has returned to Zimbabwe, his departure ending a very bountiful season of Zim visitors to Eugene, that included Cosmas and Sheasby, Mawungira Enharira, Beauler Dyoko, Bongo Love, Chiwoniso Maraire and a long visit with Musekiwa Chingodza. We'd like to acknowledge $1250 Kutsinhira received from a Lane County Tourism Grant which subsidized Musekiwa’s plane fare.

Many of these friends will not be returning in 2009. Cosmas says “You need a rest!” But, given the deteriorating and unpredictable situation in Zimbabwe, these plans could change.

A bit of good news from Zimbabwe: Musekiwa was able to buy an Isuzu truck with his U.S. earnings and had it shipped all the way from Japan, via Durban, South Africa. This was quite an undertaking, involving a measure of faith in sending a lot of money to Japan, but he now has the truck and is ready to use it to earn money by hauling food and other cargo.

We are planning for a Kutsinhira-sponsored visit with Lucky Moyo beginning in April. Lucky will be teaching in local schools and working with local community choirs, as well as teaching at Kutsinhira. Lucky has performed and taught Ndebele, Kalanga and Suthu choral music and dance on the international stage for 20 years. A regular at Zimfest and Camps Bantu and Tumbuka, Lucky is a firm believer in the role of the arts as a vehicle that brings people together in both a social and educational way. He works regularly to realize his vision in schools, community events and the corporate sector. His workshops are conducted in a communal, feel-free-to-experiment environment which enables individuals and groups to achieve a lot as there is no pressure when learning at their own pace.

Besides being a masterful teacher he is an eloquent spokesperson for African issues and a lively, compassionate and entertaining presence in all situations.

Would you like to help with Lucky's visit?

You can join the Zim Guest team to learn how to write a grant and/or organize a visit for a musician. This involves contacts with musical groups and the schools and is fun and very satisfying service. Call Marilyn @484-5034 for more information.

Kupembera Choir

Kupembera Choir is a loosely knit group of people from Kutsinhira and the community at large that enjoy singing music from southern Africa. The music is primarily four-part harmony, very full, inspiring and fun to sing. Kupembera meets once a month and occasionally performs. We’re learning as we go under the direction of Marilyn Kolodziejczyk. For more info, call her at 484-5034.

ZIMFEST 2009

Boulder, CO June 25-29! Check it out at zimfest.org

Zimbabwe Community Development Fund

This year, Kutsinhira’s Zimbabwean Community Development Project made significant donations to three recipients: Nhimbe for Progress (www.ancient-ways.org), Tariro (www.tariro.org) and what we now term the "Mhondoro Frontline Healthcare Group", an umbrella term encompassing St. Michael's Hospital, Rwizi Clinic and Chikara Clinic.

Nhimbe for Progress, a project of Ancient Ways, serves rural villages in Zimbabwe with a multitude of educational, health and infrastructure support services (wells, toilets, huts).

Tariro provides educational support and advocacy for orphaned girls in Zimbabwe whose families have been affected by poverty, neglect and HIV/AIDS. The Mhondoro Frontline Healthcare Group is a term that reflects that these facilities constitute the first line of defense against HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria in the region Mhondoro that they serve.

These are all projects that are closely connected to Kutsinhira. Nhimbe and Tariro are headed up by long-time Kutsinhira members, Jennifer Kyker and Jaiaen Beck, respectively, with Maggie Donahue as the U.S. Director of Tariro. Janis Weeks initiated contact and has continued a relationship with the Mhondoro Frontline Healthcare Group. These projects are faced with incredibly challenging conditions and are working hard to make life better for the communities they serve. We are very happy that Kutsinhira is able to contribute to the support of these projects.

e-Scrip, An Easy Way to Give

Please consider joining eScrip if you have not done so already. Just sign up at www.escrip.com. Register your credit card number(s) and shop at a variety of local and online merchants with that card (including local grocers like PC Market of Choice and Safeway).

eScrip donates about 2% of your bill to Kutsinhira. NEW! You can now apply for an eScrip Visa card. It works this way: eScrip donates up to 2% of all purchases made with your Visa card to Kutsinhira, and doubles that percentage when you use your card at participating eScrip merchants (see the website for a complete list of merchants). A simple, easy way to contribute, and IT ADDS UP!

Conditions in Zimbabwe

The following letter, from Jaiaen Beck, Ancient Ways, describes current conditions in the villages served by Ancient Ways:

November 24, 2008
Dear Friends of Zimbabwe,
We write you today with an urgent request for assistance. The people of Zimbabwe are going without food daily. Most people do not have enough to feed their children, let alone themselves. You may have heard about this in the news.

Here is how Charles Muungani, our Nhimbe Project Manager and man on the ground daily, describes the devastating effect on the families:

The situation is very gloomy here. It weakens the strongest and destroys the weakest. It is unbearably beyond the scope of human reasoning and understanding. Face to face with such a state of affairs, I know you will cry, but this time it’s me. I cry even in my dreams. Human beings have been reduced to beast. Just imagine living on wild fruits! And maybe water. Life has actually ceased to exist in this part of the world. I am short of words.

Fredreck Muchiriri, our Senior Nurse, in charge of the Donhodzo Health Center says in a recent email:

We are having a weekly examination on every child noting down any complaints and the trend in their personal health. I have done several group NMT sessions for the kids with positive results confirmed by the absence of any major disease attack this year. The major challenge is nutrition, of which Nhimbe is doing its best to afford these kids a decent meal. Having done so there remains an unfortunate gap at home where there is little or no food altogether. When kids come from their respective homes they are complaining of a stomachache that we have concluded to be caused by starvation. When they leave preschool going to their homes the stomachaches would have gone. We have concluded that these kids are only getting their meal at Nhimbe. It’s a challenge too big.

Because of the scarcity of maize, people in Mhondoro are surviving on eating a wild fruit (hacha). Besides the fact that it has been our savior, it has brought with it a serious health complication, as it is a dehydrator and milks away all the fluid in one’s body. Taken in large quantities as is being done has resulted in many individuals being hospitalized. It has been our duty to alert our community of this danger and to encourage them to take as much fluids when eating the fruit.

People are hungrier than ever before. There is nowhere to find maize but only in Harare. The situation is unbearable. Whatever health program we may want to implement the first priority is to meet the survival need.

At this point, the country’s maize supply (the staple food) is severely limited and relief food organizations are slowly coming to grips with the situation. Right now, we have access to CSB (corn-soya blend with sugar, salt and vitamins) by the ton, rather than the Harare street prices of maize by the bucket ($12 and 2 hours away by bus). Within weeks, we may have access to maize by the ton. Typically, the relief organizations do not reach the people we are serving and so we are their hope. We are prepared and ready to act and only need your financial support to do so.

If people receiving this letter could send a minimum of a fully tax-deductible $10-20, Ancient Ways would be in a position to:

• 1. Negotiate the price of maize or CSB by the ton to provide half of the daily need for three months.
• 2. Organize delivery to our two project regions.
• 3. Implement distribution with the teams already in place by using our family census data as well as other checks-and-balances. (We have successfully distributed food twice before in the last 9 years.)
• 4. Stave off malnutrition and prevent starvation of many.

Please consider this letter with utmost seriousness and respond today with your support. We cannot do it without you! The children’s growth and development, the survival of the elderly, and the outlook for the families´ health depend upon this.

As you know, our philosophy is to offer the fishing pole (education and empowerment) and not the fish.;however, when lack of food has overtaken the body and the mind, the vision for the future is cloudy. We are crossing this philosophical line in the sand, for the 3rd time in 9 years because this is an extreme crisis.

This letter is not our normal fall letter to you. That request for support for next year’s programs is in the works and going to press shortly. Information about your sponsored children, as well as all our normal end of the year plans are on their way to you within a couple of weeks. Please consider this letter in your hands a request for immediate assistance. If people are sick or dying due to malnutrition and starvation, all the best-laid plans for the future are useless.

Thank you in advance on behalf of all the villagers served by Nhimbe for Progress in the Mhondoro region and those in the Jangano Project in the Dambatsoko area. Fradreck Mujuru and Zhange "Fungai" Mujuru of Jangano, although not present in the states to sign this letter, are nonetheless, part of this urgent initiative.

Tatenda Chaizvo! May God bless you for whatever you can do!
Jaiaen Beck and Cosmas Magaya

Please note that you can send checks by mail made payable to Ancient Ways (P.O. Box 346, Scio, OR 97374) or use PayPal online at www.ancient-ways.org, or call the office at 877-TATENDA or 541-259-HOPE, M-F 8:30-12:30 Pacific time for using Master Card and VISA. Please specify Famine Relief!

Newsletter Editor: Lynne Swift
Contributors: Marilyn Kolodziejczyk, Jaiaen Beck
Editorial Assistant: Maggie Donahue

Kutsinhira Staff 2008–2009
Lynne Swift, Executive Director
Deb Olson, Education Director
Karen Howe, Facilities Manager & Membership
Craig LaFollette, Instrument Manager
Bud Cohen, Teacher
Nic Gusset, Teacher
Joel Lindstrom, Teacher
Jake Roberts, Teacher
Gary Spalter, Teacher
Wanda Walker, Teacher
Mandy Walker-LaFollette, Teacher and Webmaster

Board of Directors
Charlene Talkington, President
Barb McWilliam
Janis Weeks
Marilyn Kolodziejczyk, Zim Liaison
Gary Spalter, Treasurer
Alex Weeks, Secretary
Chris Bennett