rwanda project

Rwanda Project

2010-01-05T01:16:00.001-08:00

For the past two years, The CalArts School of Theatre, Centre Christus in Kigali, Rwanda, and the Interdisciplinary Genocide Studies Group (Berkeley, Kigali) conduct an exchange program that takes as its touchstone the study of the Rwandan genocide of ’94, and investigates means by which art can participate in conflict transformation, the recovery of historical memory, and the building of a civil society.

Each summer, students and working artists travel to Rwanda to visit genocide sites; meet with scholars, theater artists, survivors, government officials, and health care workers; and engage in practical arts-workshops.

In 2007, together with hip-hop artists Sistahailstorm and TIWAEIS, I presented excerpts from a farm for meme, my play about the destruction of a 14 acre urban farm in South Central LA.

Mil Gracias to:
Ronald and Emma Grise, sharon bridgforth, H. Esperanza Garza and Sean Danweber, Sheree Ross, Phillip Avila, Norma Cantu, Herminia Maldonado, Omi Osun Olomo, Dolores Zapata, Barbara Renaud Gonzalez, Rose Palafox and Lu Portillo, Raquel Ruiz, Erik Ehn and the California Institute of Arts for donating to this project.

LA Times Article

2008-05-29T04:04:00.000-07:00

Read the LA times Article on the Rwanda Project...Cal Arts forges partnership in Africa.

Hope North

2007-08-31T10:24:00.000-07:00

Day One

Following the arrow on a hand-painted sign, our little bus turns right off the main road. I hold on tightly to the seat in front as I am thrown up and down, side to side. We travel down a dirt road that is cut between rows and rows of crops. Fields of maiz, beans, casava, tobacco, and sunflowers line our path. As we go deeper into the bush, I can hear music, drumming in the distance. We are greeted by the community of Hope North with a warrior dance. The men are wearing beads round their chests, carrying spears. The women are singing, making calls with their voice and hands. Both are dancing.

We get off the bus and they all remain singing, dancing, calling. The community, still dancing, leads us past thatched roof homes, a children's dormitory and classrooms, past the site where the get water down to the "beach"- an outdoor performance space cut from the fields. Rows of wooden desks are arranged in a circle and the community offers us the gifts of music and food. Between songs and traditional dance, actors perform a series of actos about HIV/AIDS, the importance of contraception and getting tested, which remains taboo in many parts of Uganda.

After the performances and food, we are led back to our rooms. All the women share one room, filled with bunk beds, covered with mosquito nets. The bathroom is in another casita and we bathe from a tina in the backroom of our house.

In the evening, we meet again with the community, this time around a fire. The women serve us lemon grass tea and the children carry burlap bags filled with maiz - offering each guest an ear of corn to roast in the fire. Three boys tend to the flames all evening, gathering wooden logs from behind the bakery. Sitting in front of the fire, I am bathed, cleansed by the flames. While the community dances, drums, I cry. Realize what I have witnessed in Rwanda - the bodies, the children, the struggle, the orphans, the genocide, the resistance, the poverty, the wealth, Bisisero, Butare, the gachacha, the despair and the hope in the eyes of the next generation - and I finally let myself cry tears that won't stop. Breathe. Cry. Drum. Cry. Breathe. Drum. Cry.

The community does not stop singing, dancing. Everyone is on their feet as the fire lights the night sky, dancing. "Vicki, c'mon and join us. Vicki, c'mon and join us," they sing as we form a circle dancing together, together dancing, everyone dancing, together. When my legs can no longer sustain the weight of my heart, I return to the fire and eat my corn. I am blessed/cleansed by the warmth of the flames. The dancing continues until 5 in the morning. The fire still ablaze.

Hope North

2007-08-31T10:23:00.000-07:00

Day 2

Hope North is a refugee camp, the home to children and families orphaned from the war in Northern Uganda. In the morning, we meet in a circle, learn a dance from Tanzania and collectively engage in a series of exercises meant to "demystify pain." I held the weight of my own body for one minute, concentrating on a bamboo stick in the ground. Then two minutes, thighs shaking and finally five minutes as Okelo (who founded Hope North) explained the importance of testing the limits of our own body, of not cheating ourselves and our health and knowing that in this world there is enough - the idea of scarcity is a myth perpetuated by the powerful. In this world, there is enough for everyone, if we stop fighting.

In Northern Uganda, children have been abducted, taken into captivity, and have been abused and used as child-soldiers and/or sex-slaves. Instead of ensuring the safety of the Acholi people of Northern Uganda, the government has created a series of interment camps (officially named, internally displaced people's camps) where now over 800,000 people live. Due to congestion and unsanitary conditions it is estimated that thousands are dying at these camps, often of curable diseases. The Ugandan government is not providing adequate water, food, sanitation, medical services, or school for the people in these camps and are complicit in waging a war against the Acholi people of the North.

Hope North was created after a massacre in 1994 at one of these centers. The mutilated bodies of the Acholi were cut in pieces and cooked publicly in large pots throughout Northern Uganda. Shortly after, Okelo's brother was kidnapped. Okelo knew there had to be an alternative to the government's "solution" to the conflict. Hope North is trying to be a self-sustaining community. On their land, they grow their own food, have their own bakery and are developing their own schools. Their hope is to create a safe space for children to work, live, play and learn. In the afternoon, Hailstorm/Vanessa, Erik and I divide into three groups and teach writing workshops to the youth. While Erik engaged the youth in a series of theatre exercises, my students wrote about dreaming and Hailstorm/Vanessa taught the children the art of rhyme and power of hip-hop. The young people left their workshop chanting in the call and response tradition:

-Uganda
-Hip-Hop
-Hope North
-Hip-Hop
-Black and Brown
-Hip-Hop

With sunglasses on and hats turned backwards, drums marking the beat, they told us how the world would be different if they ruled it.

-If I ruled the world...
-there would be no segregation
-If I ruled the world...
-we would all have education
-If I ruled the world...

After our performances, Okelo gives us all responsibilities for the evening because we all had to contribute to the community. Hailstorm and I were responsible for the fire with three other young people from Hope North. Vanessa was in charge of sweeping the area where we build the fire while others were put in charge of collecting corn, cleaning the bathrooms, and even killing and cooking a goat, that evenings offer to us.

While Robert prepared the goat, Hailstorm and I left with one of the women elders from the community to ask one of the farmers if we could use some of his tobacco for offerings to the fire. He agreed and took us to a thatched roof shelter behind the fields where the tobacco was drying on wooden reeds. Rows and rows of tobacco. We bought the tobacco back to our casita and began gathering the wood for the fire.

Hailstorm grabbed an ax, swung it above hear head, cut the wood.
One of the elders looked on and commented "She is very strong."
"Yes, a very strong woman," I agree.
Watching, I decide I should get them some water.

After a game of soccer, we light the fire and prepare to eat. Okelo, Hailstorm, Erik and I offer tobacco to the fire and Okelo and I perform a limpia, thanking the earth for the day. She responds with a thunderstorm and we retreat but leave the fire burning. We all gather in the living room of one house and eat our goat from one plate with our hands. They prepared the meat on top of freshly cut tomatoes and onions and we shared food as one tribe.

Earlier that day, Okelo gave us four mango trees to plant at Hope North - representing friendship, family, nation, and unity and the earth responded, gave us rain, so they might grow.

DreamING

2007-08-31T10:21:00.000-07:00

iam
iam
iam
iam

iam dreaming
of running
of reading
of dancing
of studying

iam dreaming
of driving a truck
of being a nurse
of being a farmer
of being a teacher
of being president

iam dreaming
of peace

iam
iam dreaming
iam
iam dreaming
iam
iam dreaming
of one world

-monopoem by the students of Hope North
August 2007

Murambi

2007-08-25T07:35:00.000-07:00

I still get sick when I try to write about Murambi. I feel like I can't begin to explain this place but I have a responsibility not to exclude it from my writing. Images come to me in nightmares and I know I will continue to struggle to try to find the words to describe what I saw that day. I didn't take pictures though we were encouraged to - asked to tell others of this place.

Like many sites of genocide in Rwanda, this site is kept by survivors. We were told clearly that they were not our tour guides, they were guardians of the space, told not to ask them questions as they took us through 24 rooms filled with the remains of their dead, unburied, preserved in lyme, on tables, room after room, filled with corpses, bones that had turned white. The stench of the decaying corpses is overwhelming. You can not breath without taking in the smell of death and you have to work hard not to throw it up.

-Machete, one of the survivors says, breaking the silence.
-Machete, he gestures, cuts through the air, showing us the blow of machete on bone.

50,000 were killed in Murambi.

During the genocide, the government encouraged the Tutsis to take refuge in a newly built secondary school. Once in the compound, they were trapped, left for days without food so they would become weak, easy to kill.

I went through every room.
One of the rooms is filled with skulls.
In another, on a clothesline, hangs the clothes of the dead.
I went through every room.
Saw the dead bodies of men, women, children, babies.
The bodies, frozen, preserved in the original state at the point of death.
Some had hands raised to face in a futile attempt to protect themselves from the blows of the machete, some held their babies close to them, some were yelling, some were twisted, bones broken.

In Murambi, they refuse to bury their dead.
So that no one can deny what happened here, it is explained.

And I am reminded of my own responsibility as a writer. I am writing trying to remember, against historical amnesia, I am trying to recover the bones of all our dead in Rwanda and the rest of Africa, in Mexico and the rest of the Americas, in Palestine, in Iraq, in the US - trying to recover the bones of the Native American genocide, of California church arches built with the huesos of the Chumash, of the students massacred at Tlateloco in 1968, of the Chinese hung in Mexico during the Revolution of 1910, of fallen Zapatista soldiers, of Chipitia Rodriguez and the hanging trees in the South, of 5 little girls in Alabama, of the nameless immigrants crossing the border into the US, dying of starvation, suffocation, drowning, shot in the back. I am trying to recover the bones of Kent State, Katrina, Wounded Knee, Haymarket Square.

I am reminded of my own responsibility.
Our dead can not be forgotten.
I refuse to let them bury them in forgetting.
Images come to me in nightmares.
I am searching for my dead.

Butare

2007-08-25T06:11:00.001-07:00

Driving out of the capital city of Rwanda, you see an incredible change in landscape. The newly constructed high rises give way to fields of banana trees and green countryside, thatched roof houses, men and women carrying recently harvested crops on their bikes and their heads. There is a way that modernity masks memory. The building of new buildings attempts to erase the old, what once was. On the streets of Kigali it's easy to get lost in the new stores, new hotels, new restaurants, new city, and the extreme wealth of the recently returned exiles. It is easy to forget that the genocide began in Kigali but in the countryside, there is a different feeling. Land holds memory. Feels. Knows. Remembers.

Within hours, the killing that began in Kigali spread to the countryside and continued for three months. The genocide killed 1/10 of the Rwandan population and yet today Rwanda has more people per square kilometer than any other African country. Driving through the villages to Butare, you see the evidence of a densely populated Rwanda and understand the consequences of scarcity of land - it's easy to imagine how people were cordoned offed, rounded up, chased into buildings, surrounded, trapped. Driving through the villages to Butare, I feel the earth speaking, hear the people's cries under the lush green that surrounds us.

Land holds memory. Knows. Feels. Remembers. This land remembers the dead. This land remembers the deaths.

Sovu Convent
In the 100 days of genocide, many turned to the church for sanctuary. Sovu Convent in Butare is on a huge plot of land. It sits at the bottom of a hill. There is a gate to enter the convent, a garden, a green forest. In 1994, more than 6,000 Tutsis were killed on that land.

Sister Gertrude and Sister Maria Kisito were forced to open the gates to the convent to those seeking refuge from the mass killings on the street. Erik Ehn is explaining the story of how the two nuns later drove people off the land to be killed, how Sister Gertrude, called Hutu militia to come to the convent to kill the remaining survivors, how Sister Maria brought the militia the petroleum and the Tutsis seeking shelter refused to leave so they locked them in a building and burned them alive.

I feel the land. I feel it crying, screaming, shaking. A man in tattered pants, open shirt, no shoes is standing outside the gates of the convent. He begins shouting, continues shouting, switching languages from Swahili to Kenyarwandan. We struggle to hear Erik above the man's screams, until Erik is forced to stop.

-What is he saying? Erik asks.
-He's crazy, someone responds.

The man continues hollering, yelling,

-I killed people. Drowned the baby in the toilet.

The man's story contradicts itself, turns on itself.

-I saw them die, he is still shouting.
-He's crazy, someone else agrees.

The man won't leave. Stands outside the gates, continues yelling and I can hear the cries of the man times 6,000 people, running down the hill, yelling outside the gates, yelling, refusing to leave, bare feet, tattered clothes, hollering, screaming.

-He's not crazy, Vanessa finally says. He is here for a reason.

We are not clear if the man is a perpertrator or a victim but he tells the same story in two different languages over Erik. Stands at the gate. Screams. In the distance a group of girls, begin singing. Their voice, a limpia.

The man remembers.
This land remembers.
We must remember.

Butare

2007-08-24T07:18:00.000-07:00

We performed at the National University of Butare in Rwanda, to a crowd of well over 100 men. ALL men. Outside of our group, not a single woman in the audience. Trust me - I looked and I know how to spot a woman in a crowd full of people. I could not find not one. All this to say, that when it was Hailstorm and TIWAEIS's set, they took the mic and rocked it. They used that stage as a place of convergence for the mental, spiritual, physical, and political. Their energy flowed through the audience like a wave.

Hailstorm explained:
-In my native language Tiahui means to move forward.
So when I say Tiahui, I want you to say Rwanda. Tiahui, she yelled
-Rwanda, the theatre of men shouted back.
-Tiahui
- Rwanda.
-Tiahui
- Rwanda.

And before she began rapping on beats bumpin, she broke it all down. "All my beautiful African brothers, you came from here," pointing to her own uterus. "All of you came from women. You must respect women and their power. My name is SistaHailstorm - I am your balance."

Then the music came up and Hailstorm called on the spirits of all our warriors past, present and future and somewhere between the hooks and beats she left us, transcended that space, that time, that moment, while TIWAEIS freestyled her way through lyrics forgotten without missing a beat, and I sat in the audience with renewed faith in the next generation.

Hailstorm closed it off by singing a traditional native woman's warrior song, beating on a African drum. There was no drumstick for the huge drum she used, so she found a broken piece of wood and told the audience "This right here is ghetto native. I had to break one of the chairs from your classroom for this song."

Through their art, Hailstorm and Vanessa bring together past and present, indigenous and urban, spiritual and street to create a completely new form of art. They had the audience on their feet and after the show they had a group follow them to dinner to talk about their performance, their work, the politics of gender, and the current state of hip-hop.

A week later, a smaller group of us return to Butare for a series of theatre of the oppressed workshops, led by artist/activist Brent Blair, with an organization of student survivors of the genocide. Walking on the streets, we hear someone yell, "Hailstorm" and one of the young men from last week's audience joins us - ends up going to the workshop with us and introduces us to his friends that are studying kung-fu. Over lunch, we have a chance to talk more to the students that are struggling and fighting for access to education. Hailstorm, Vanessa and the students immediately connect and they begin talking about how they can support each other's struggles. That night, two of them return to Kigali with us. One is writing his thesis on the genocide and is excited to learn about the genocide studies library founded this year in the city's capital. The other makes plans for continued dialogue with Hailstorm and Vanessa. And I am left with so many questions.

In 100 days, over 1 million people were killed in Rwanda.
800,000 are accused of acting as perpetrators.
130,000 are in prison for committing acts of genocide.
400,000 survivors live in extreme poverty.
30,000 are homeless.
10,000 have finished secondary school but can not go to the university.
5,000 injured still need care.
Rape survivors now infected with HIV (a strategy of the genocide) have access to medication but do not have access to food. They can not take the medication without food.
In recent years, there has been a rise of post genocide attacks.

The average life expectancy for Rwandans is 40. The youth outnumber their elders. As one man said, "We will leave it for our children to continue to negotiate the conflict." This is the first generation forced to build a nation post-genocide. And in their eyes, the eyes of the youth, you see a different anger and frustration as they are confronted with the harsh realities of the statistics and the contradictions implicit in the dream of a united Rwanda and yet as one of the students said "we have no choice but to move forward."

Tiahui. Rwanda. Tiahui.

Bisisero

2007-08-18T06:14:00.001-07:00

We travelled six hours in two buses through fields of sugar cane and bananas - out of the country's capital city into the villages hidden high in the mountains, past Lake Kivu. Lake Kivu was once legendary for the unusual size of the fish and the fisherman profited until it was realized exactly why the fish were so big. In the summer of 1994, over 11,000 bodies clogged the majestic lake and the fish became fat feeding on the dead. Perpetrators of the genocide often threw bodies in rivers, lakes, and wells because it saved them the labor of digging a grave but also because any act of genocide is ultimately is an act against the Earth - an attempt to disgrace her. On a winding dirt road, we pass a waterfall and I am reminded of the earth Tonatzin's power to heal herself, wash herself, regenerate, continue to grow, despite our violence.

When we arrive at Bisisero, a council of elders greet us and inform us that no one is allowed to visit the site without permission from the community. Bisisero, they explain is not a site for tourism. It is a site of resistance and those that are granted permission to travel to Bisisero are also charged with the responsibility of sharing with others what they have seen here. Dressed in a blue sports jacket, baseball cap and orange rubber sandals, one of the elders, guardian of the space, explains, "this region has never been favored by the government - even before the genocide." The community of Bisisero struggled and continues to struggle against poverty and lack of formal education and yet this was the site where nine different tribes from nine different communities joined to form the only organized resistance against the genocide. The elders met and organized in an attempt to resist their unmaking. Women and children collected rocks, sticks and stones and Tutsi men slipped in and out of the militia, camouflaged with banana leaves and chalk - they tried to attack the militia from within. Many survived by hiding in the forest while their homes were looted and destroyed, their cattle stolen, property damaged. Eventually all avenues to the region were shut off and the inhabitants of Bisisero were surrounded. The French army appeared in the community and asked to speak with their leaders. While the militia, perched on all sides of the mountain watched, those that fled came out of hiding, believing the French army had been sent to help them but even after the community detailed the violence inflicted on them - showed the French soldiers their wounded and their dead - The French withdrew, leaving the inhabitants of Bisisero completely exposed, their hiding places revealed. The elder explained,"We had no choice but to fight. We knew, armed with sticks and stones, that many of us would die but we had no choice. We were going to die fighting."

In the mountains, there is a monument commemorating the Tutsi resistance. Nine spears in a circle symbolize the nine provinces that united against the genocide. The man from the village leads us to a hut made from corrugated metal sheets at the bottom of the hill. He unlocks the padlock on the door and signals us to enter a room filled with rows and rows of skulls on tables, bones stacked, legs and arms cracked by the blows of machetes. A small window uncovered casts a light in the center of the room are we are told to walk through each row of skulls, each row of bones, each row, walk.

The old man stands watch at the door. As I walk by, he touches my arm. I am working hard not to cry, hold in tears as I concentrate on my own breath, heart heaving. The old man touches my arm and I am forced to look at his face, stare in his eyes. He traces a tear from eye to cheek with his finger, shakes his head in acknowledgement, touches his heart, as if giving me permission to cry. Instead, I hold his hand tightly as we walk back up the hill together. Eventually, the bones at the bottom of the hill will be moved into a series of circular rooms built on the side of the mountain. Though the rooms are now empty, we collectively make our way up a series of stairs that take us up the mountain. The walk represents the journey and struggle of the dead and we are told that once we have chosen to walk with the dead, we can not turn back. We must continue until we reach the top of the hill. If we we could not complete the journey, we should not begin. We were asked to consider the collective responsibility we share for the murders of the these people. "The genocide was committed against the whole world. The whole world committed the genocide." At the same time, we were also asked to find a shared unity of resistance. Every step forward was an acknowledgement of death and life. An old man from the community walks with us. Using a walking stick to maintain his balance, I feel his strength and determination and wonder how many times he has walked this journey, climbed these steps.

Towards the top of the climb, the concrete steps give way to stones and an even steeper incline. The incline gives way to flat land, where the community built a mass grave for their dead, a tomb at the top of their mountain. We give offerings of sage, lavender and rosemary to the living and the dead, say prayers and descend down the other side of the mountain, in silence. We listen to the crickets, insects, chicharras, and our own footsteps break the pine needles under our feet.

At the bottom of the mountain, the old man touches my shoulder again, puts his open palm to his heart, shakes my hand and in kenyarwanda says, "thank you." He takes the sage from his pocket, smells it, smiles, shakes his head in acknowledgement once. "Thank you," he says again.

Today, I walked with the dead, on a pilgrimage with both ghosts and the living. In the distance, I see the Congo. In the distance, a haze of red appears in the mist as the sun sets and I know I can never again return from this journey the same.

First Day's Arrival

2007-08-18T06:04:00.000-07:00

Vanessa grabbed the globe from the living room and set it on the middle of our kitchen table in East Los Angeles. My other roommate Hailstorm and I were eating Rocky Road ice cream straight of the carton while V. broke down a little geography lesson for her three boys, Elijah, Emmanuel and Israel. "See. Rwanda is in Africa,"she explained and the boys stood, huddled together, staring - trying to find the small country on the map. "Rwanda is far, far away." Vanessa outlined the distance from Los Angeles to Kigali with her finger. "Momi's gonna take a trip with Auntie Vicki and Auntie Hail far away for a long time. Understand?" and so it was decided at our first East Los Angeles kitchen table planning meeting that three of us - writer, poet and emcee would take a trip far, far away across two continents.

A month earlier, in January, Vanessa was invited to speak on a panel at the Arts in One World Conference at CalArts. Specifically, she talked about the movement to save the South Central Farm, a 14 acre urban farm in Los Angeles CA where her and her three boys lived in a tent as part of an encampment to save the farm from destruction. She described the forced eviction of the campesinos and subsequent bulldozing of the land as an act of cultural genocide and detailed the resistance against that violence as a concrete urban indigenous movement.

The conference opened space for artists to share strategies of resistance and creative responses to human rights violations in their respective homelands of Tanzania, Uganda, El Salvador, Ireland, Sri Lanka, Ireland and Rwanda and created opportunities for us to draw connections to our own struggles in the United States and a chance to self-examine our culpability as citizens in a nation that perpetuates or remains silent about violence all over the world - a nation that financilay supported the contras and the repressive regime of Somoza in Nicaragua, the Isreali occupation of Palestine, and that turned its back on the people of Rwanda during the genocide of 1994.

At that conference, I decided I had to go to Rwanda. I wanted to understand and learn from a people that were actively trying to build a country post-genocide, trying to examine and erase the vestiges of colonialism from their histories and physical bodies, trying to reconcile the reality of perperators and survivors living in the same village, trying to remember and honor the dead while at the same time trying to imagine a future for all the people of Rwanda. I invited Vanessa to go with me. Three days later, when I came home from school, Hailstorm was waiting for me on the porch - confronting me with a series of questions. "Why Vanessa get to go to Africa? Huh? Shiiiit - I wanna go too."

That was the night we held our first of many planning meetings at our kitchen table, when we made the decision to support one another on this journey. We became family, a tribe, as we tried to figure out a way to make this a reality. A few months later, we sent Sista Hailstorm North to Seattle. The modern day migrant artist hustler, she worked two jobs at a radio station and taking care of children in between gigs, fundraisers and teaching the art of rhyme and debate to high school and college kids.

Back in East Los, Vanessa also took on a second job, saved her tips and made tostadas she sold at local hip-hop shows and the university. Our kitchen table, once used for strategy meetings, was put into full effect as we created an assembly line cutting fresh vegatbles and fruits for the making of tostadas and aguas frescas. Aguas for Africa became our new campaign slogan. The secretaries at my school were so moved by our motivation and dedication that they asked the associate dean to hire Vanessa and I to cater the theatre schol graduation reception.

At night, I taught workshops to kids in East LA and over the summer, waited tables at a Mexican restaurant in South Austin and I learned the strength and power of a community that loves and supports my work as an artist and an activist. Again my deepest gratitude to everyone who helped us in our fundraising efforts. In a little over four months, we made over $7,000 and learned that there wasnt nuthin we couldn't do.

But days before our trip, Vanessa's passport still hadn't arrived. Hailstorm and I were convinced that it was a racist plot because we all applied for our passports at the same time but Hailstorm and I applied in the middle class white surbabn city of Valencia while Vanessa went to the post office in the hood. The waitresses at my work, who are up on the latest changes in immigration policy, told me about the huge backlog on passports because of the new laws requiring a passport for travel into Mexico. Some of them had waited nearly 6 months to receive their passport and I Hailstorm and I were right, it was a racist plot. I guess the government undersestimated the number of us Mesicans that cross their arbitrary borders every day to work, visit family, for weddings and quinceneras, to buy queso and leche quemada which always tastes better from Monterrey for some reason.

Thank god I still have friends that believe in our political system and that politicians should, well, help the people. They told us to call our congressperson. Well - eventhough Vanessa and I do not have the same optimism for our system, we were tired of sitting on the phone holding - so we called and sure enough a day before we left, her representative made an appointment for her at the already booked LA passport agency. And despite only having a copy of her birth certificate, she walked out that day with a valid US passport.

So I eagerly awaited Vanessa and Hailstorm at the London airport, terrified that somehow this wasn't going to happen, however, today we all flew into Naorobi, Kenya, above the clouds, with the sunrise. We thanked creator for the day, for the sun. The sun rising turned an African sky yellow and purple in its red glow. We landed in Kenya, touched the ground and for the first time, it settled in, we really were going to make this journey together. Dizziness from the change in altitude kept us buzzing long after our initial excitement wore off. Two more flights and waiting in longer than long lines - the heat, the air, the sky - everything seemed different.

When we finally arrived in Kigali, we were picked up by a young Rwandan playwright named Evas, who negotiated with the cab drivers to get us to our hotel. We needed to take two cars - in order to fit all our luggage and us. Hailstorm and I packed for a survival mission in Europe - two sleeping bags, two backpacks, tons of tuna fish, sardines, oysters and crackers - enuf to make it well past 2012. We were ready - though we were still unsure for what exactly...

a farm for meme

2007-04-30T15:08:00.000-07:00

Based on the South Central Farm movement to save 14 acres of farmland in the middle of urban Los Angeles from destruction, a farm for meme is a hip hopera, that documents a mother’s attempt to teach her children an alternative to consumer culture. It is a reclaiming of histories and traditions and the centering of women’s storytelling and lived experience. We have been asked to perform a farm for meme in Rwanda, Africa in July 2007. In addition to their performances in a farm for meme, Hailstorm and Tiwaeis will also be performing music from their debut CDs in both Rwanda and Uganda.

South Central Farm Video:
featuring the music of TIWAEIS

Video of Sistahailstorm

2007-03-27T22:23:00.001-07:00

SistaHailstorm

2007-03-27T22:19:00.001-07:00

SistaHailstorm is a two-spirited, 23 yr old, underground hip-hop artist and traditional dancer, born & raised in North East Los Angeles. She is the second generation in her family to face the challenges of alcoholism, drug abuse & gang activity. Surviving and overcoming these urban realities, Hailstorm made the decision to return to her people’s traditional ways. Seeking a spiritual state of balance, she found her passion in the underground hip-hop movement as an emcee and graffiti artist.

In Seattle, Washington and Vancouver, British Colombia, Hailstorm participated in several state and world wide indigenous gatherings and community based live performances, including the Indigenous Youth Conference and the International Philipino Solidarity Conference. She also helped raise money for the legal defense committee supporting the activism of taltalhn elders.

In 2006, Hailstorm released her first full-length solo album entitled “14 halfway 2 ave 28.” Hailstorm has shared the stage with internationally recognized artists such as Bahamadia and her music was recently released in Tokyo, Japan. The work of SistaHailstorm has been featured on several documentaries, television programs, radio shows and CD compilations. As a young warrior, Hailstorm maintains a life long spiritual, political and physical commitment to the Native Movement.

Virginia Grise

2007-03-27T21:57:00.000-07:00

Virginia Grise is a Chicana cultural worker, writer, performer, and teacher from San Antonio, Texas. She has taught writing in the juvenile correction system and has facilitated organizing efforts among women, immigrant, Chicano, working class and queer youth.

The Panza Monologues, her one-woman performance piece, was published by Evelyn Street Press and has toured throughout the Southwest. As a member of Accion Zapatista, she traveled to Chiapas Mexico as a peace observer and edited a volume of Zapatista communiqués entitled Conversations with Don Durito, published by Autonomedia Press. Virginia has performed in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Austin, Atlanta, and Cuba. She is currently seeking her MFA in Writing for Performance at the California Institute of Arts, under the mentorship of Carl Hancock Rux.

T.I.W.A.E.I.S

2007-03-27T21:23:00.000-07:00

T.I.W.A.E.I.S (Thoughts is Wind and Elements is Signs), is a singer, writer, poet, emcee and mother committed to the preservation of community, culture and the environment. She uses her music as a tool for social and political change and has performed at rallies and marches, including the California state-wide student walk outs and the Hotel Worker’s Union protests.

Tiwaeis was also an active member in the fight to save the South Central Farm. The South Central Farm made national news when, despite widespread community protests, the city allowed for the farm to be bulldozed in 2006. Tiwaeis was featured in a full-length documentary about the South Central Farm and is one of the founding members of the Farmlife Project, a group of emcees that came together through their involvement in the struggle to save the farm.

Tiwaeis is also a member of earthstonez, an all female underground hip-hop group. Earthstonez is scheduled to release their first CD “Audio Therapy” in the summer of 2007. Tiwaeis currently lives in East Los Angeles, where she raises her three boys.