Today (Sunday) was media day! At 10AM we met with over a half a dozen journalists representing various print and online publications and a photographer. They had very interesting questions.

Can you tell us how you’ll be interacting with people here in Zimbabwe?
Give a brief history of jazz.
How popular is jazz in the black community in America?
What is the relationship between jazz and blues?
Who are some of the jazz musicians you know from Zimbabwe? Do you know any from South Africa?

These and many other questions were thrown our way. We answered them to the best of our ability, but it is clear to us that we there is much that we do not know about Zimbabwean music and musicians. Being the curious individuals that we are, we used the occasion to learn more about the local scene. There are indeed many vary interesting and highly accomplished musicians from Zimbabwe, such as Oliver Mtukudzi, Louis Mhlanga, Thomas Mapfumo, The Cool Crooners (who we will be meeting), et al. In addition, mbira music is traditional among the Shona people and our knowledge of it is rudimentary. There is much for us to learn. (And there always will be.)

The embassy PR staff has done an amazing job of publicizing our visit and there have already been a number of press articles. Apparently there will be many more.

iZimbabwe article
The Zimbabwean article #1
The Zimbabwean article #2

After the radio interview, we learned of the possibility for one of us to be interviewed on Wednesday on live TV. It is a wonderful opportunity, but there is a catch: it is early in the morning. It took us a few hours to decide that Michael will do it. How did we become such celebrities?

After this press session, we split up. Greg stayed at the hotel while the rest of us, including Jillian and Jasna, headed to a mall for a quick lunch. From there Jillian, Michael and I went on to a radio station for a live interview with Jasna and Jeff staying behind to do some shopping. At the radio station, questions came again fast and sometimes unexpectedly. We answered as best we could. We are improvisers after all, but this really put our skills to the test.

The day had already been busy, but it was just beginning. We had a brief rest break before traveling to Prince Edward School for a sound check and concert. Here we were privileged to hear some of the talented highschool age student musicians in the jazz band program. They played before our concert and with us at the end. I hope that it was as fun for them as it was for us.

As has been the norm on this tour, we were inundated with questions after the show. We actually encourage this exchange and pass out business cards with our contact information on them so that people will be able to contact us even after we leave. It took a while for us to pack up and bring our conversations to a close, but we finally were able to get everything and everyone into the van. The evening closed again with a late meal before turning in. It was a full day.

On our schedule, today (Saturday) is marked as a “rest day”. In coordinating with the embassies on this tour, the Jazz at Lincoln Center staff has worked hard to keep some days completely free of any compulsory activities, be they workshops, concerts, media interviews or “welcome” dinners with embassy staff members. Even though we’re still at the beginning of our tour, a day of recharging is highly welcome. Through a combination of jet-lag and lack of sleep, I’m exhausted. A day like today gives us a chance to sleep-in and retire early while still having time to prepare for our upcoming events and see something of our surroundings. With the latter in mind, we make plans to go out to Lake Chivero Recreational Park, within which is a wildlife sanctuary. We are attracted by the possibility of seeing rhinos, giraffes and other creatures. Apparently these animals have, for the most part, been brought in from elsewhere, e.g. Hwange National Park and the Lake Kariba area (where the building of a hydroelectric dam caused the displacement of people and animals).

The park is a forty-five minute drive out of Harare. We leave around 11AM and take lunches. The plan is to make it our one activity for the day. Midday is most likely not the best time for seeing wildlife roaming around (it’s probably nap time for many animals), but in the hours that we are there we manage to see quite a variety of species: warthogs, tsessebes, zebras, impalas, wildebeests, baboons, monkeys and guinea fowl. Not to mention various birds, butterflies, bugs, lizards and numerous large, white anthills.

At Bushman’s Point, the remotest place on on our trip through the park, we see some ancient rock paintings. The highlight, however, is getting up close and personal with a white rhino.

We close the day at an upscale restaurant where Jillian has made reservations for us and we turn in early.

Today (Friday) we only had flying from Lilongwe, Malawi to Harare, Zimbabwe scheduled. Being the seasoned travelers that are now, we decided that this was not enough and we added in a side trip. Getting an early start we had just enough of a window to drive to Lake Malawi and back in time to catch our flight. After all, how could we come to Malawi and not see this attraction? The result was three long hours of driving for one short hour at the lake, but it was worth it.

The lakeside stay ended with some purchases from a stand selling local handicrafts. Beautiful carvings, paintings, necklaces and bracelets were on display. I, for one, was very short on cash, but found the work too beautiful to pass up.

At the airport in Lilongwe airport, we said goodbye to Limbani Chipembere, Cultural Affairs Assistant at the US embassy. He and the others, like Felix Funsani, working with him did a fantastic job of getting us around the country, answering our endless questions, explaining the local culture and issues, going out of the way to show us things… We move on, but the beauty of the country and the people here will stay with us.

It is only at the airport that some of us realized that it was going to take two flights to get us to Harare: Lilongwe-Johannesburg & Johannesburg-Harare. We arrived late in the day, therefore, in Harare, where we were greeted by Jillian Bonnardeaux, local Assistant Public Affairs Officer, who thoroughly briefed us on our schedule and what to expect here in Zimbabwe. No adventures this evening, as we were thoroughly exhausted from our travels and headed to our rooms as soon as possible.

The trip to Zomba was indeed quite bumpy with the road being somewhat in disrepair. We managed to arrive, however, more or less on time, at our destination, Chancellor College. Here we worked with students and faculty members who had a more intellectual background and interest. This is not to say that they were any less enthusiastic and involved in the interactive parts of our program than the previous groups, but their questions were of a different nature. They were interested in the whys, whats and whens of jazz not just the how-tos. As at our previous workshops, there were many questions to answer and people to talk to even after the end of the program. It is wonderful to meet so many people who are curious about and interested in what we are doing.

This was the last of our scheduled activities in Malawi, so headed back towards Lilongwe where we were to spend one last night before catching a plane to Harare, Zimbabwe. We did not travel far before we stopped at the Hippo View Lodge, a restaurant/resort along the Shire River. We did not see any of the hippos or crocodiles who reside in the area, but lizards were in abundance and we had a wonderful meal and a great view of the river.

Our long trip back to Lilongwe included more views of the beautiful countryside and scenes of rural life here. We did, however, have a long stretch of very dense fog which made the driving treacherous.

Although it was dark when we arrived back at the hotel, Jeff, Michael and I had the intention of taking a walk to see the neighborhood. One of the Malawian bellmen convinced us, however, that that was not a good idea since darkness tended to bring people of questionable intent out into the street. A stroll around the gated grounds had to suffice.
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PS NBL Times article

Yesterday (Wednesday) afternoon we gave our second clinic. The composition of the participants was that of professionals, whereas our previous group had mostly been student-level members of Music Crossroads. The knowledge of jazz again was minimal, but the interest and enthusiasm was high.

We returned to our hotel after the workshop, then Jeff and I went out to eat at a little restaurant that he had discovered a few blocks away. Our excursion included not only dinner, but also changing money (make sure you carefully count what you’re given) and handicraft purchases (involving Jeff in lengthy, multistage negotiations).

During our workshop, the electricity had flickered on and off three or four times so it wasn’t a complete surprise that it was off when we arrived at the club (Café Mibawa) for our evening performance. After a delay of about an hour power was restored and our performance took place. This was a somewhat noisy club environment in contrast to the extremely attentive audience that we’d had the night before. Still, it seemed that our music was well received.

After our performance, we packed up our gear and returned to the hotel, wich was only about two blocks away. Jeff and I both were interested in checking out the local band that was playing after us. So, we walked back to the club despite the warning in our tourbook that “U.S.citizens are urged to avoid traveling on foot at night, especially in urban areas, as armed muggings and assaults have increased”. At the club, we ran into a young bassist that Jeff had been working with earlier and we joined his table which included a photographer with whom I’d spoken in the afternoon. It felt like we were among friends. The band was a very tight, well-rehearsed unit playing covers of American pop tunes and Malawian dance music. Smokin’! It was well worth the effort to get out of the hotel and it gave us the opportunity to hear the high level of musicianship that exists here. We left when our hosts left and uneventfully returned to the hotel.

Our final event in Malawi will take place this morning in Zomba, which is about an hour’s drive from Blantyre. I’ve been informed that it can be foggy there and that the road is rough. We’ll soon see.

Monday was a travel day allowing us to start getting acclimated to being in Africa. We had an early breakfast and checkout since our flight to Lilongwe, Malawi was at 10AM. The trip itself was nice and short and we were greeted by a very friendly and helpful team from the US embassy.

The drive to the hotel gave us a chance to take in the beautiful scenery of undulating terrain and local agriculture. The sky was somewhat overcast, but the temperature was very pleasant (in the upper 70s) – a wonderful contrast to the snow and cold in Chicago.<
After a restful afternoon, we were warmly welcomed for dinner by Public Affairs Officer Ben Canavan and his wife. We were treated to a wonderful meal and relaxed, but informative, conversation about the local scene. Tuesday being our first full day of activities, we went back fairly early to the hotel to get some sleep.