Here is a place for all of you who are going on the trip to write a few lines about yourself. Add it as a comment to this post.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
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A group of over 40 InterPlayers and friends will travel this August (5th-20th) to Malawi, the homeland of InterPlay leader Masankho Banda. We will go to learn, play, connect, make new friends, and to be changed. InterPlay founders Cynthia Winton-Henry and Phil Porter will co-lead the trip with Masankho.
15 comments:
G'day from Sydney! I'm French/Thai & worked 20 yrs ago as a Mime in NYC + LON. I'm very excited to learn African story telling with Masankho who was here in January and am looking forward to the yummy drummmms, singing & dancing we are about to learn! I've been studying Japanese taiko drumming for 2.5 yrs & hope to learn some basic African drumming whilst there (will stay in Malawi until 31st AUG). Looking forward to interplaying soon with you all! Cheers! baina44@hotmail.com
Hi there from California! This is a first for me...my first time blogging!! :) Wonders never cease! Anyway...I am so filled with joy and excitment about this trip to Malawi and eager to hear the music and songs of Africa! My InterPlay history is long, since 1998, and I have been in WING IT! since 1999. If my name is familier to some of you it is probably because I was the "office guy" for InterPlay here in Oakland for 6 years. These days are filled with working at Kaiser Hospital in Hayward as a Chaplain, and being a part-time youth minister at my local UCC church in Alameda. See you all soon. I am taking lots of deep breaths! :)
Hi, I'm Alison! I live in Oakland, play with Wing It! and write--poems, essays and plays. Going to Africa has been a lifelong dream for me, and I can't think of a group of folks I'd rather go with. I want to volunteer in an orphanage while I am in Malawi, and meet the children. I hope to go back a few days later than the bulk of the group, so that I can spend a little extra time volunteering. I will also be on the lookout for good stories to write about while I am there!
Hello from Many Apples, Many Sodas (Minneapolis, Minnesota.) When I was five years old, our family took in a student from Tankanika (now Tanzania) thus began my imagining Africa. For many years I have been saying that one day I would go to Africa. Now with the crossroads of my 50th year on earth, the end of a marriage and the desire to step deeper in to myself with other juicy people, my heart gave a direct order and said, "Your going!" I am also giddy about the company I will be keeping. So, as I play out my summer kids concerts, massages and compostions, I will be dreaming about the Big Dance with you all!
Hi all! I too am excited about our upcoming trip, and unlike most, I am not an interplayer. I am the daughter of the beloved Krista Harris. I am graduating from Whitman College in a few days and will be starting my own business as a henna artist this summer in Seattle. I plan to someday be an art therapist, so I suppose the playful and therapeutic essences of interplay are in me too :) See you all in Africa!
Katharine Kunst I went to South Africa last year and was determined to come to that part of the world again--and soon. So here I am. Facing Africa..the problems, the hope, the despair, the love. I don't know why, but my heart is connected to that continent and I am so deeply grateful to be able to join this group going to Malawi. To learn about village life, to eat the food, to be. After our two weeks together, my son and I are going back to see more animals in South Africa.
greetings of peace and love!!
the excitement is beginning to build in me as I anticipate this journey. I am Masankho and six years ago I had this dream that InterPlayers would come to Malawi to dance, sing and play and I am just so happy that the dream has come true. actually it came true last year as Krista, Liz and Louise from Seattle came to Malawi, they are the groundbreakers and now you all are coming to Malawi and it is very exciting. Malawi will now be a regular stop on the Interplay tour. Thank you for saying yes!!
Wow-- this is getting exciting, reading all your blogs. Mine is a bit more pedestrian. I'm seeking info/connection. This is Elaine Hanson from northern Minnesota, and I am flying to Africa with my frequent flyer miles. I am wondering if someone else out there is doing that, if maybe we might connect on one of our flights in or out, make the travel a little more fun. I am leaving Aug 5 and going from Mnpls to Amsterdam to Nairobi to Lilongwe. Returning the 19th via Johannesburg and Atlanta to Mnpls. Is anyone doing anything similar? The tickets were booked through Northwest but I don't think that's the only airline I am flying on. (the tickets are confusing). Anyway, I am looking forward to this exciting and unique oopportunity to meet some wonderful people and have some wonderful experiences! Feel free to write me directly for any reason. elainehanson@unitelc.com
I've already started my cross cultural world play tour having arrived in Oakland from Byron Bay Australia a few weeks ago. I love song, dance, moments of silence, sameness, difference and finding stories in all of it. I am excited, delighted, joy filled and wait with an eagerness to feel the heartbeat of Malawi and Africa. I look forward to joining with you in the dance.......
Katie Winton-Henry said...
Hello all!!! As you all know i am Cynthia's daughter but that is not the only reason why i am going on this trip. About a year ago i was watching t.v and came upon a documentary about the issues going on in Darfur. Ever since then i have been very drawn towards africa and helping its people in anyway that i can. I am so excited for the trip! see you all soon!!
Hello from the Mini Apple, Minnesota. I can clearly remember chanting in unison, "see you in Africa" on the last morning of Masankho's workshop in Nashville. AND, we are REALLY going! Ironically, my two daughters will be in Ethiopia and Tanzania in July. It is our family's summer to experience the heartbeat, the pain, the triumphs, and the beauty of Africa. I am thrilled to be going with my beloved partner, Cathariene AND ALL OF YOU! James and Catharine are celebrating 50. I think that calls for a dance on behalf of. Put me on your dance card...
Heather Koser here. I am also from the place of small fruit and cool drinks. (minneapolis) This will be my 4th trip to Southern Africa. First to teach English for a year in Namibia, then returning for a funeral and then for a South African wedding. It is time for my return. I am missing it. I am committed to maintaining joyful and playful spirit during our time together and beyond, and I request that you all become my partners in creating that reality!
Hello everyone!
Kathryn Tobias here in Cheverly, Maryland (near Washington, DC).What could be better than InterPlay AND Africa?!! This will be my seventh trip to the Continent, having spent a summer working with women on income generation in Winterveldt, South Africa, and having taken a few other trips to that beautiful country, as well as Namibia and Swaziland. But it will be my first trip to MALAWI and my first trip with InterPlayers! I will be traveling first to visit friends in Durban for a few days, then to Lilongwe on your plane, at which point I will be with you to the end of the trip. I have been intrigued by Africa since my childhood, when my parents’ best friend, from Switzerland, had lived part of her childhood in Congo. Subsequent friendships reinforced my desire to visit—my freshman roommate in college was a missionary kid who grew up in Tanzania; my roommate in the 1970s in Madison, Wisconsin, was from apartheid South Africa—a strong woman in an impossible situation, and for six weeks in 1998 I hosted a homeless young man from South Africa on a tour with a group of homeless people performing their play here in Washington DC I have been IN LOVE with Africa since I first set foot there in 1999, tagging along with a friend who helped develop the play. And then there is InterPlay—another wonderful story that you all share in different ways. I love to write and do watercolor and sing, and my hope—no, CONVICTION—is that doing InterPlay in THE WARM HEART OF AFRICA will open pathways to creativity and community and relationship I never knew existed!
Safe and happy travels, all!
Linda Breitag here, fresh (or rumpled, actually) from UBBH yesterday. I just joined the trip and indeed have no idea how I'll get there yet! (Insert sound of ecstasy and panic here.) But I've been preparing for Africa my whole life, as pretentious as THAT sounds, possibly a couple of former lives... Don't want to name all the connections here, just trust me, Africa has been HUGE in my life, heart and mind (and bookshelf). BUT because of an insidious, might I say demonic, Scarcity Mentality, I had never been able to Just Do It. Finally I decided I HAD to go by my 50th birthday (next Feb) but hadn't begun to plan it (see Scarcity above). And now I am going to make my first of several, possibly many, trips to Africa, thanks to your encouragement, you who know who you are. About me: writer, singer and songwriter, mother, fiddler, ethnomusicologist/folklorist (grad school), legal alien on this planet, handcrafting supergeek, ridiculously in love with languages and travel, InterPlay recluse since 1995, my other heart home is Quebec, that's enough for now. Can't wait to turn 50, starting in Tukombo. Also, I'd love to spend some time in South AFrica after the trip if I can work it out. Have a dear dear friend from there. OK, gotta call Sheri right now. love, me
Timoneni! I have wanted to go to Africa since 1968 When I took Dance Appreciation as a freshman dance-theater major. I longed to experience a culture where dance was fully integrated into everyday life, where dance was life itself. I have found an aliveness akin to this in InterPlay, and I leapt at the chance to join Masankho when he took a small group to Malawi in September of 2006. My most joyous experience was that of dancing with the village women of Tukombo! I was also deeply moved by the challenges of poverty and AIDS that I witnessed there and have been fundraising ever since for KUDO, the non-profit organization Masankho's father founded to help empower villagers. I joyfully return to Tukombo, the people there, and the life-giving projects that have been funded by U.S. donors this past year. Participating in an InterPlay cultual exchange experience in Africa is another dream come true! Having my daughter, Meghan, join me is totally awesome!!!
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