House of Loveness, Zimbabwe

Coming Home This past week I arrived from the US into the airport at Shannon, Ireland.  I was excited to be coming home.  I've only been to Ireland a few times but each time I connected strongly with my Irish roots.  My mother is a Murphy and her family immigrated to the US during the Irish potato famine in the 1850s along with two million other Irish people who left their homeland to start new lives in the US, Canada and Great Britain. When I passed my passport through the hole in the glass to the customs agent at the airport, he thumbed through my passport at the pages and pages of stamps, including one from being in Ireland just a month ago.  Then he glanced at my customs form. "You're a teacher?" "I teach a movement class for women," I responded, not going into the explanation of  Qoya , the class I would be teaching in Ireland this week. He scanned my passport. "You travel for fun?" he asked.  "Why are you going to all these...

Making friends at Wild Is Life I spent a week in Zimbabwe in August.  I really didn't want go. I'm so grateful I got on the plane anyway. Before I left, I was feeling frustrated about the recent elections in Zim and how the results would affect the citizens.  I was also frustrated because House of Loveness needs a new car (the kids are taking buses and hitching rides to school).  I was frustrated because I desire to move the children to a better home but we don’t have enough money to make it possible.  I was frustrated because we are having problems getting birth certificates for the (abandoned) kids and they need these to go to boarding school.  I also felt pressure to stay in the US for the release of my new film so I could pay my own bills.  The trip ended up being filled with deep connection to the children, the animals, the people, the land and the sunsets.  My frustrations turned to gratitude. My walk with Tatenda My fi...

   The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. -Gandhi   During trips to Zimbabwe, I end most days sitting on the verandah of the B&B I stay at when I'm visiting the children supported through House of Loveness.  After a day of travel to villages and working with the children, I enjoy digesting the day as I watch the African sky change from blue to a rainbow of soft colors as the sun is setting. One evening a man on the porch greeted me as I took a seat.  He was Zimbabwean and was surprised to hear my American accent.  He didn't live in Zimbabwe anymore.  He was even more surprised when I told him I traveled alone to Zimbabwe (and other parts of Africa) several times a year. "Africa is not for sissies," he said to me.  He had a hard time understanding why I would come to Zimbabwe to help the children, rather than just go on a vacation and relax at the beach.  I do get the benefits of ...

" I never knew of a morning in Africa when I woke up that I was not happy." -Ernest Hemingway The air in Zimbabwe is called champagne air. It's crisp and bubbly, like the tingle of the first sip of champagne on your lips.  It makes you want slow down and savor every moment. Zimbabwe sits a mile above sea level just north of the border of South Africa and while news reports may keep you from coming to Zimbabwe perhaps you will listen to the whispers of your soul, come to Zimbabwe and take a deep breath in. I have been going to Zimbabwe several times a year since 2008.  There is something about the champagne air, the kind smiles of the locals, the dreamy colors of the sunsets, the radiance of the stars lighting the dark African sky,  the beauty of seeing elephants and rhinos living in their natural environment . There is something about the spirit of the Zimbabwean people that remind me to live in a state of gratitude , giving thanks for the sunrise e...

My first trip to Zimbabwe in 2008 "There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find how you yourself have altered."                                                            -Nelson Mandela   I have been traveling to Africa several times a year since 2008 when I went to Zimbabwe with dreams of adopting a baby girl that had been abandoned.  She was named Loveness by the hospital staff who cared for her after she was delivered to the hospital in a dirty wheelbarrow.  A local man had found Loveness and three other babies, all a few weeks old, abandoned in the nearby fields.  This was the height of the cholera epidemic and the collapse of the economy.    After I received the call about Loveness, I arrived in Zimbabwe a few weeks later with six suitc...

When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.  -Mary Oliver After many years of celebrating Christmas together in as a family post-divorce with my ex-husband and our four children, this year I made the decision to go to Africa for the holiday. It was a last minute decision after much soul-searching. I really wanted to be with my four children on Christmas this year.   My children are ages 17-22 so time is limited with them as they create their own lives outside of family. I especially needed to be with family after losing my stepfather on November 30, 2012.   Mom and my soul father John My own father died twenty-four years ago when I was twenty-five. My stepfather, John, came into my mother's life seventeen years later.   I called him my soul father because calling him a stepfather just didn't seem good enough for a man like John. My mom and John met and m...

Tariro and Cheepo November 30, 2012 Graduation Day           “Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that a son of a mine worker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farm workers can become the president of a nation."                                                    -Nelson Mandela November 30, 2012 was a special day in Zimbabwe.  Thirty-two children celebrated their end of the school year graduation from the school supported by House of Loveness.  In a country where many orphans drop out of school by first grade, these children were beating the odds. It was a moment filled with blessings...