Yesterday afternoon I paid a visit to my Rastafarian friends at the gardens here in Kitwe. Unfortunately I did not bring my camera, or a pen and paper… Because there was a lot to hear and see. The Rastafarians make concrete sculptures and decorations for a variety of uses, they would use clay, but they don’t have a kiln, or clay. The main guy is a trained potter, who was working with a nationalised company called Zambia Pottery… but as with most of the Zambian nationalised companies it liquidated. Competing with cheap asian imports is difficult, so it’s down to using concrete, but being very humble people, they aren’t the type to complain. They do the best with what they have got, and they have made beautiful pillars, flowerpots, statues. I have a plan to set up an art exhibition at the gardens, and change the context of the objects from props to art, it might allow them to sell more and for higher prices. The money made will be spent on buying new instruments, community work, farming etc… nothing for any real personal gain, just invested straight back into their projects. Anyways, has anything I’ve just written got to do with blessing a pipe… well the whole afternoon, we blessed this beautiful stone pipe I received as a gift only the night before. The gift was a “thank you” for putting the video that started all this online. This is the pipe… with this inscription upon it.
“747 never give up hope”
The blessing of this pipe was beautiful in my eyes, shared amongst the Rasta’s, allowing us to share many conversations, about the past, present and the future… and this is why I wish I took pen and paper, we spoke of many things… Including the story of Mushala, a rebel leader who planned to take over the north-western province of Zambia… Also a very poetic love story of one of Rasta friends here who fell in love with a girl who mistook his poetic wooing as crazy banter… And life in the Zambian Army, where the first thing said to you as a trainee is “We are going to destroy you! And then we will rebuild you in our own fashion”… Each of these topics deserve more research and their seperate postings… So you’ll just have to watch this space…
