After a month’s holiday in Australia I came back to Harare just in time for HIFA2011 (Harare International Festival of the Arts). During the last week of April, the city was full of different kind of performances, workshops and art forms. My personal favorite was Hotel Paradiso, a drama without words. The actors wore masks and used body language to express the feelings. We also took our children to see and hear some performances, like the Finnish choir group Philomela. Philomela performed with a Zambian choir and those young men from Zambia also paid a visit to Dzivarasekwa to sing with our children. The whole week was full of cultural activities and parties. On Saturday evening we even celebrated Vappu with Finnish people from Harare and Lusaka (Zambia) and some other friends of Finland.
Monday was a holiday in Zimbabwe, but we had the opening ceremony of the ICT-building. Finland’s Ambassador to Zimbabwe Sinikka Antila was there with many other high positioned guests. Our children sang, played marimba and danced for the guests. Antioch and I had a small computer lesson moment to show the visitors how things will work there. It was a successful event. The recently painted buildings looked really nice and collected compliments.
