APRIL 16, 2011,  NOTE FROM SILAS

Hey All,

Is time not something curiously mysterious? I certainly cannot grasp it. It slips between the fingers of my awareness and flows past me like a rushing torrent of water. Sometimes it flows into a big pool and I get to float there for a bit; I rely on those moments. But, for sure, I cannot grasp it.

In the same vein, so much has happened in the last month and a half since I sent out any kind of communication. So, now, I will attempt to unravel this complex story and, at the same time, try my best to keep this one short and sweet highlighting a few of the many nuggets worthy of your scrutiny.

The workshop took place on the 10th, 11th and 12th of March and was a complete success by its conclusion. In the preparation, some of the things had been left for the last minute, one of which was the tent we planned to erect to protect us from the brazen Zimbabwean sun. When I cycled to the beer-hall where I was going to collect it, the owner looked a bit surprised that I was interested. I had arranged to use it through his brother, but he just shrugged and led me to an old broken down truck, grass growing tall around the rotting tires and pointed to the 20-foot bed. I hopped in and discovered why hed been surprised. It was in about four different haphazardly torn pieces, covered in mold and still wet on the inside from the rains that had come in mid-January. There was little to do but laugh, and no more options to explore.

We decided in the end to have the three-day event at the Church in the township, gathering there every morning at 9:00AM Zimbabwean time. We sat in a circle and began the days by giving each person a space to share their voice to see how they were feeling and get a reflection of experience from the group. The first day we asked the question, Why am I here? This was a totally new concept to all 30 people present and they appreciated it and emphasized the importance of continuing the practice as the initiative strengthened its legs and moved forward.

Guided by myself and the two guys from Kufunda, Stephen and Fidelis, we asked what imaginations the people had; what they wished to see created within their community. We asked what was important to sustain a healthy community and heard the story of how Kufunda Village emerged in a forest outside Harare. I gave a little view into the purpose and inspiration behind what we are attempting to undertake from my perspective. We made some agreements for the workshop and also commitments for the future. After visiting the stand with the group and giving it a blessing, we imagined what could take place there. One Gogo in her 70s said when she closed her eyes she could see the ancestral chiefs of the area dancing in celebration in the middle of the stand surrounded by a healthy, happy group of friends and family. Another said it was going to be a center of activity and support where we could change our hearts, to have community at heart and, thus, serve our community.

We then asked, What is the difference between a Center and a Project? They said, a Project is practical; it has a starting point and a finishing point; works with a certain number of people and needs some agreements to be made in order to function properly. They said a Center is a place where: people give and receive new knowledge; the future is continuous; any number of people with different purposes can come together; doors are open for everyone who wants to learn; a place that has the potential to change the environment and create community. Together, from these questions, we decided to create a Learning Center, a physical community that acts as a platform for development, projects and whatever else is living in the people that wishes to emerge.

This was an exciting conversation for me to witness and be part of. To see these people, in such a short time, coming to decisions and making agreements with each other gave me a feeling of finally handing something over that I had been carrying for years It was like a massive exhale and a new breath of fresh air. By themselves they came to ideas and inspirations so similar to the ones I wished for that it was eerie and so awesomely beautiful. For example, reconnecting the youth and the elders through intergenerational work, or tapping into the wealth of traditional knowledge and bring it forward in a form appropriate for the time in which we are living now. We dove into difficult questions like, What creates weakness within our community? And came to the answers of Jealousy and Greed and the wish to change them. Or, the simple yet so incredibly complex question, How can we trust one another? They voiced things like, transparency, openness, clarity on responsibilities, attendance, asking questions, to do away with jealousy and be humble and respectful. If I had been putting words into their mouths, I could not have come up with better ideasit was brilliant.

We then went around the circle and made a big list of the skills and capacities that were already present in the group and found that we had much to learn from one another. We had plenty of farmers and athletes, great cooks and singers; we had painters and carpenters and builders, drivers, schoolteachers and illegal miners, herbalists, bakers, tailors and people who loved to eat. We had dip-tank attendants and people who were good at carrying firewood, candle makers, conflict mediators and cattle herders. It seemed as though we had it all right there.

We finished up the three day workshop by looking into the future and seeing what next steps could be the most important to take. First and foremost was setting the date for the next meeting: it seemed we were on a roll! Erecting a place to meet and getting piped water connected at the stand came next. Then we talked about a small building that could house tools on one side and someone who would play the role of caretaker and security guard at the stand. The next largely mentioned thing was to have a learning journey to Kufunda Village to see what was happening on the ground and really get to taste a functioning and vivacious community, tangibly applying many of the themes which we were working to create in Manicaland.

Weve had one meeting a week since the workshop and have managed to completely clear the stand of all unwanted vegetation, trim the trees and have a fresh look for imagining a layout plan. Just a day before we completed that work I received an SMS from the guys at Kufunda saying there was going to be five available spaces for a seven-day workshop surrounding the fundamentals of community development and healthy collective learning. It would happen from the 10th to the 17th of April, just four-days away! They said if we could pay our 8-hour bus ride, they would give us accommodation and food for free. After finishing the work at the stand we made a dara (a circle) and opened the space for people to share anything on their minds. Then I told them of the opportunity to go to Harare. Within five minutes they had unanimously voted for the five who would be going and everyone was excited and pleased. It was a moment for me to be appreciative of the incredible steps we had made as a group and as an emerging community; I was happy.

The following morning I boarded a bus early in the morning and headed to a rural area called Chikore that I had never been to, but was host for a good friend Sue who had helped me in acquiring what was necessary in order to receive donations in the United States. She is the co-founder of an organization called A Light For Zimbabwe (www.alightforzimbabwe.org) and works as a nurse in mission hospitals throughout Chipinge. Her organization works to support orphans wishing to go to school, starting small income generating projects with residents at hospitals, supplying hospitals with the medicines and resources they need to function as well as being a full time nurse when shes present. When I arrived in Chikore I saw the first white person Id seen in a long time and because I was crammed in the front seat of the omnibus surrounded by bags of maize, crying babies, some chickens and general chaos, I climbed out the window and made my way to a friend. It was great to be with her and the two other New Hampshire natives who happened to be there working at a local high school. It was the first time in a long time that I heard the words, Want to do dinner? The first time that I’d eaten a proper potato salad and even ice tea!

We made our way back to Rimbi together the following day and I showed her the stand and met a few people involved in the project. The day after that, I woke around 4AM to have a bath and meet the others for the trip to Harare and Kufunda.

The workshop was impressive. They free way in which they work with the people makes way for the hardest of hearts to turn. To get practical experience in the different initiatives that are taking place within the community was also a blessing for me and the guys I had come with from Rimbi were psyched. There was a group of about ten teachers who had come from Masvingo, ranging from 22 years old with a year of experience to over 50 with just under 30 years experience. All of them had been told to go to a workshop but not what it was about or where it was. They had expected to be put up in a hotel in the city and attending some dry conference in a sterilized room. After traveling down an amazingly terrible dirt road, one teacher feared had gotten involved in a human trafficking deal. But by the second day, they were relaxed, laughing and even singing. By day three we were dancing around the fire to the beat of a drum and all their inhibitions were gone.

It seems they guys have absorbed a great deal from this place, as have I, and will take it back with us to Rimbi. It is now the Saturday after the workshop. Ill be returning to Rimbi with the strong 20-year-old orphan and retired gweger (illegal precious stone miner) who has never been out of a 100-mile radius of our home. It was his first time to see a two-story building let alone the massive skyscrapers that we will show him today.

This mail was written fast, so it may lack some of the colorful chicken scratch of the past. But I felt it was important to get this out before the next weeks hit the fan. Sunday, I return to Rimbi. Tuesday we report back to the community what we experienced and learned here in Harare. Wednesday I will board a combi to South Africa (hopefully keeping my phone this time) and pick up a friend on Friday. Sunday we will be back, together, in Rimbi. Thursday we will leave for Harare where we will help set up a booth on sustainable technologies and community development at the Harare International Festival of the Arts (HIFA). Well return to Rimbi on the following Tuesday before going again to South Africa on Friday. Ill return again and stay for a bit more than three weeks before heading, one last time, to South Africa to board my own plane destined for The Europe.

Life is intensely beautiful. Someone wrote to me recently that were living in very dynamic times of huge possibility. Like a fork in the road we have some decisions to make as to what direction were willing to head as a people, as a global community. He said most people look at the medieval times as barbaric and inhumane with the kingdoms, the plague and the crusades. Yet, today, we can find far worse things happening on a much larger scale. Yet again, between all the news headlines, nuclear threats and violence, there are real people with real lives, real hopes and real dreams. Change abounds us. How can we utilize whats already taking place to create good in the world? Well, I believe that a small group of people in Rimbi is working to do just that.

Peace,

Silas
–
Silas Beardslee
ZIM: +263 77 807 3702 <tel:%2B263%2077%20807%203702>
Skype: SilasB3
E-Mail: SSBeardslee@gmail.com
BalanceForZimbabwe@gmail.com

Website: www.HeartChord.org
www.BalanceforZimbabwe.org

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MARCH 16, 2011 NOTE FROM SILAS:

Hey Sisters and Brothers, Fathers and Mothers,

I hope wherever you are and whatever you’re doing, you are also awaking to the enhanced connectedness of our times.  I am so incredibly curious as to what the next months and years will bring for our communities, our world and our consciousness towards life.  I feel sometimes eerily, yet comfortably, out of my body;  wrapped up in the lives of so many of my friends and family, whose current physical lives I know little to nothing about yet feel involved in still.  Dunno, maybe i sound creepy, but i feel a new relationship to life and time approaching and I’m excited to know I’m in it with all of you.

Things nearer to the southern pole are romping forward and at a startlingly rapid pace.  I was just consulting the Gregorian calendar the other day and realizing the time to return north is coming steady!  I still have a lot to get done, but i feel confident that all is spilling as it must.  We just finished up with a three day workshop, where about 30 people, plus two dudes from Kufunda Village in Harare, really put their minds together, stepping out of the normal boundaries of cultural and traditional stagnancy, to explore new ways of working together.  Among many other breakthroughs over the three days, the people, together, decided it was better to call this initiative a “Center” rather than the dull reference of “project.”  A Center has the potential to host many projects.  A Center has the possibility of an immortal lifetime, whereas a project often gears up, rocks, and then fizzles out.  I’m somehow proud of the people for accepting the challenge of taking this new perspective on and their statements of commitment to developing a healthy community were pretty profound.  They unanimously supported the naming of “Balance For Zimbabwe” and we are toying with ways of integrating Center into it as well: “Balance For Zimbabwe Community Center,” “Center of Balance for Zimbabwe,” “Center for Balance,” etc.

I’m returning to the shocking realities of Europe in the beginning days of June and then im off to Amerrrrica after the summer. i’m searching for a few outlets of support.  Y’all seemed like primary candidates.  I feel like i have a much more viable stance for fundraising now that we have had some actions on the ground and have established a governmentally, culturally and community recognized and supported initiative.  Over the next weeks and (few) months we will be putting together some concrete next steps.  Those already on the docket include:

1.) A meeting place (we’re envisioning a large round, thatched hut, about 15 meters across, half-height walls open to the ceiling, polished cement floor, with rounding benches and an open inner space)
2.) A pair of Toilets
3.) A rectangular brick shelter that will be partitioned at one third, the bigger 2/3 part being a safe storage area for tools and materials, and the 1/3 a small living space for a 19 year old, orphaned, high school dropout, who i’ve become close with, who will act as our caretaker and security guard if everything falls pat as i hope.
4.) Fencing the stand and the garden from predators like pigs and goats (and lions).

Those are just to give you a small picture into the next steps, and more will follow in due course, as i said.

So, im searching for cash, aren’t we all? Is there a possibility of collaborating on an event(s)? A concert? Small time, big time, whatever time, im certain it will boost something.  One idea is to have a “Dinner Party” (or Cocktail Party, maybe if we get people drunk their more generous???), inviting plenty of people to come and eat together with the purpose of learning more about what is happening in Zimbabwe and supporting the initiative in some way.  Another idea is just to throw a kegger, five bucks a cup.  But i doubt my mother will give that one a lot of support and i trust her intuition. (not to say its out of the books, i know some guys who paid their college tuition’s doing that!)

At this point, my clairvoyant eye is foreseeing that I’ll be in and around Europe until September, then wandering across the ocean to the US of A.  I think i will be there part of September and the months of October, November and December before heading back to Zim. I wish to be mobile and get socially and financially recharged, eeing loved ones and creating little event explosions throughout.

Any ideas? Thoughts?  Concerns, celebrations?

Though im amped by where i am and whats happening, im really looking forward to seeing you all.

Peace,
Si
PS Feel free to plagiarize this text. I have done so already.

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JANUARY 19, 2011, NOTE FROM SILAS

Things are really taking shape over here.  I feel like I am exactly where I’m supposed to be. I have good people surrounding the project and wanting it to take off.  The word “Project” is now buzzing through the village; some people knowing more than others, but nearly everyone interested to get involved.

The Chipinge Rural District Council (CRDC), a section of the local government responsible for the partitioning, purchasing and distribution of property, has just awarded us with a stand a mile outside Rimbi Township.  In doing so, it has also made the name “Balance for Zimbabwe” somewhat of a legal entity, holding sole ownership of the property!  The stand is 60 meters by 40 meters, a quarter hectare, about 25,800 square feet or three-fifths of a acre, if you can get a picture.  It would normally have cost upwards of $1,200 and taken up to six months to process, but the Council gave it to us for free and in a matter of a month! They said that their job as the CRDC is to develop rural areas, thus, the project is helping them and they should support it!

The stand will act as our base-camp; a place to meet, to build, to grow, to run workshops and to listen to what is emerging from the people.  Practically, it will be host to soap making and pressing of sunflowers for cooking oil.  We also plan to run skills trainings in various things led by people in the community with a certain gift.  We would like to find those interested in sustainable building, carpentry and metalwork, permaculture farming and herb gardens.  One of the coolest aspects of what we’ve achieved thus far is that all the ideas, and others I didn’t mention, have really come from the people.  I feel my role is to listen and to facilitate the ways in which we can turn these wishes and aspirations into a community reality.  Up until recently, the Balance For Zimbabwe website was super out of date, which was a bummer on one hand, but it’s awesome on the other, in that, it means we are really listening to the needs and wishes of the local people who will be carrying the responsibility of fruition.

Chief Rimbi has also raised a voice of support and has just now given us one hectare (about two and a half acres) of farming land.  He had told me long back that he would like to give us some land, but the size and extent was a surprise.  On top of that, he had already plowed and planted the whole plot with Sunflower seeds!  I couldn’t believe it, and I was literally jumping up into the sky for the thrill!

Based upon the interest of the people, we are looking into a sunflower-oil manufacturing project.  Currently, all the cooking oil, one of the fundamental basic needs, is coming into the country through South Africa.  Apart from very few, mainly personal, small time producers, there are none within Zimbabwe.  This project has the potential to provide the people with jobs to grow and sell sunflower seeds, press and filter the oil and then sell it, all of which would contribute to drastically lowering the price of the commodity, two liters of which currently sells for $4.50 in Rimbi, equivalent to half of what a school teacher makes in a day.  We are also researching soap making.  There is a local tree called Jatropha that is highly acclimated to the environment and can flourish in plenty of rain or no rain.  It produces large seeds that hold up to 40% oil.  This oil is really not good to eat (like it will give you the master of all running stomachs just to swallow a drop) but it can be very good for the skin.  If we heat it and combine it with caustic soda, add some lavender or some other fluffy scent, let it sit for a couple weeks, we got soap. This is yet another basic need shared by all who struggle to afford it with the lack of jobs and very low salaries of the those who have the rare few available.

From the 10^th to the 12^th of March we will be having our first “formal” workshop.  30 people from the community and myself will be joined by four people coming from a small organization called Kufunda Learning Village (www.kufunda.org) located in a farming area outside the capital, Harare. Kufunda has been operating for about 20 years, working with rural areas and engaging in conversations around ways of working together as a community to become more socially and economically productive.  We will sit together for the three days and open up a space for conversation about what’s possible within ourselves and what is wishing to come forth.  The folks from Kufunda will facilitate the space, allowing the time for each body to present and introduce themselves.  They will also share the story of their organization giving a window into the beginning triumphs and struggles of something fresh emerging.  We will also go into what is alive now within the place; traditions, dreams, gifts and skills that are already present and conclude by coming up with some concrete and tangible next steps that we can take within the project and within ourselves to host these changes.

I have recently moved the first shovelful of dirt at the stand preparing the space for the workshop to take place.  I was joined by an incredibly hardworking 19 year old orphan and high school dropout to clear and burn brush and remove a plant called “tsetso”, the bane of my patience and existence with its rounded thorn balls that’ll do anything to sneak inside your shoes and joyfully puncture your feet.  We cleared a space to set up a tent and sit together on grass mats and makeshift chairs, and another space for a small outdoor kitchen.  Left to do is dig two pit toilets and set the place up!

At times I can find myself struggling to move forward in the face of what is present here.  I have to work hard to focus on the positive aspects of what has happened so far and give it time to naturally take root.  I am not here to force anything to happen.  I am not here to impose, urge or preach.  I feel I am here to carry out a vision that I shared with my brother, Balance, for his home and homeland.  I am here to express a message of possibility.  The vision is to work with the people, see what they are eager to release and help them do so.  I want this vision to create good within the community and even create a new community altogether.  The potential, the sheer power of the Zimbabwean people is apparent at every turn.  The difficulties that they have survived over the years have created patterns and structures that people are not used to live within.  Many are willing to break free of these systems and get a new perspective on what is valuable and free.  I have had many experiences that inspire me as to the possibility of this vision. I am walking toward its truth, joined by others each day. Ultimately, it will be up to the people of Rimbi to come forth and embrace what is possible through new forms of working together and in doing so make Balance for Zimbabwe a reality, or not.

Tichaona, shamwari dzangu, tichaona.

We will see, my friends, we will see.     (Read the “Proposal to The Chipinge Rural Counci”l next.)