Mulenga Kapwepwe Keeps On Going

There was a time when I had an abiding love affair with books.  I loved to buy them and collect them, and read them if only in part.  I had them set in particular ways and places in my basement office, and on many occasions, I'd just walk along the aisles I created, look up 10 feet to the top of the makeshift shelving, then run my fingers along the spines of books. 

Over the past 10 years, though, I've migrated onto online reading.  I read more than ever, but my consumption is virtually all online.  I hardly buy books now, and what I have are mostly in boxes in the basement and somewhere in Dubai.  On occasion I find PDFs of books I want, so I simply download them.  But in general I extract the lessons I want to learn from what I search on Google and what I find on my Timelines.

Mulenga Kapwepwe and children in their African hut

That said, I still love the idea and the haven of a library.  I am enthralled at the sort that Mulenga Kapwepwe created in Zambia:  More of an active and engaging community center, where books may be at the heart of it all, but it's curiosity and imagination that make it like an African hut:  where children can paint and dramatize, play and learn, along with getting chances for conversation, interaction and mentoring.

Mulenga Kapwepwe and children on the fútbolpitch

Kapwepwe has written plays, built libraries, started a record label, founded a youth orchestra, and run a fútbol team.  She is indeed an inspiration and a role model for me, as I want to do what she has done and is doing - the range of things, the diversity of things, the service to the community, youth and nation.

I love, too, her wisdom and advice on getting things done:  She has learned that you don't have to wait until everything is perfect.  Instead, you keep moving forward, and things get better over time.  You do your best with what you have and with what you can do, then with a decent dose of interest and willingness.  You may have scale down your dream, or even reshape them, but Kapwepwe encourages you to keep going. 

The Many Faces of Mulenga Kapwepwe

Often sponsored sites make it a minor inconvenience to scroll through their photos and blurbs.  Their idea is that every time visitors open a new page on the site, that's an important to pop an ad in front of their eyeballs.  This CNN site, on the other hand, is actually pretty good.  The photos of Mulenga Kapwepwe scroll cleanly and quickly, and the blurbs are simple and useful.  Nevertheless, I'm so taken by her that I gather these up all on one page for our reference, enjoyment and learning.

1.  Mulenga Kapwepwe is the daughter of Zambia's former vice president, Simon Kapwepwe. Growing up in a house full of the nation's liberators left a lasting impression on the young girl. Today, Kapwepwe has become something of a tour de force for Zambian arts and culture.

2.  Her favorite place in Lusaka is the National Archives -- it also holds a special place in her heart thanks to the moments in Zambian history captured on film including her father. "They do have some really nice photographs that for me are very real because some of are my parents."

3.  It's also where the de facto arts patron takes her artistic inspiration from. She tells CNN: "This is where I do most of my research work ... I'd begun to write the history of my tribe. And as I got into it and I dug into it, I thought this would make a really good play." Despite the fact she had no formal theater training, Kapwepwe has become a celebrated playwright in Zambia.

4.  Mulenga Kapwepwe stands on stage providing script direction while preparing her latest play, "Rufino's Wife." Kapwepwe says: "That again was inspired by the fact that there were members of my family: my uncles, my father's sister's husband for example, who went and fought in the Second World War. And it struck me that the Second World War actually had an impact on my family and the village that we come from. But you don't hear those stories anywhere. What happened tot he Africans who fought in the war who came back to their villages. What is the story?"

5.  The talented playwright was surrounded by books during her childhood -- something she wanted to share with children today. So she built three libraries in Lusaka. "We kind of mix it up with the traditional African hut, where you discuss things and you are mentored. You get knowledge and you interact, there's drama."

6.  In addition to her work on stage, she found traditional music in the National Archives and decided to ask young up-and-coming musicians to incorporate it in their work to find a new audience. In doing so, she founded a record label, which has since released three albums.

7.  When she's not wrapped up in the world of entertainment, Kapwepwe can often be found cheering enthusiastically from the sidelines of the Chilenge Girls football team -- a group she set up. Kapwepwe herself was born in Chilenge and wanted to give something back to her community while helping young girls stay "off the streets." She reveals: "We've managed to push girls into the national team and play for Zambia ... It's a nice avenue that we've created for girls to go a little bit further than they would like to do."

8.  Another achievement on her list of many accomplishments is the Lusaka Youth Orchestra which Kapwepwe founded to provide teens with a place to embrace music.

9.  She explains, "These young people are from different backgrounds, from different parts of Lusaka, and some of them very vulnerable. But I think when they all come together like this, music is an equalizer and everybody enjoys themselves and they learn something."

Reference, with warm thanks to CNN:  She's written plays, built libraries and started an orchestra... Meet Mulenga Kapwepwe, Zambia's patron of the arts.

I am very grateful to have met this lady.  I love the arts, and besides Kapwepwe being an inspiration, there are, in my conceptual and practical language, wonderful algorithms to extract from this very informative, very engaging feature on her.

Zambian Patron of the Arts Mulenga Kapwepwe

In recent weeks, I've spent a dedicated hour every Friday, scouring key sites for world news: Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and CNN.  TV is the worst place for me to consume news, because what I get is what is fed to me.  CNN is among the worst, for example, at obsessing for hours or days on particular topics:  from flooding to murders, to rioting and accidents.  It's as if nothing else is happening anywhere else.  Newspapers and magazines are fine, but they're a small inconvenience and cost I simply do not need to tolerate and incur.  Online, however, the news are in my control and choice, and over the years news sites have put more and more of their reports and features at us consumers' disposal.  I can scope quickly, and read, watch or contemplate whatever it is that catches my attention. 

That preamble done, let's head off to Zambia, and meet Mulenga Kapwepwe.  She is the patron of the arts, sports and education, with an actively creative mind and seemingly boundless energy.

"I don't think Shakespeare went to a playwright school so I'm sure I don't have to."

What a wonderful feature on Kapwepwe, her country and her work.  Hers is an easy-going manner, and it feels rather natural to admire, appreciate and like her.

"I grew up in an environment where the struggle for the country, the liberation of this country, was very much a part of the conversation in the home," says Kapwepwe, a renowned Zambian playwright and daughter of the country's former vice president, Simon Kapwepwe.

Imagine talking about things of such national import at home.

"For me, Zambia is not an abstract concept," she says. "It's something that I heard being birthed in the house that I lived in -- even the name of the country, the answer came from our house. Literally. My father coined the name and it was agreed that this country would be called Zambia."

I think Zambia must've been an abstraction in the 20 years leading up to its fateful flag-raising in 1964.  It is a real country now, in ways it wasn't before.

"I'd begun to write the history of my tribe," she recalls. "And as I got into it and I dug into it, I thought this would make a really good play, but I didn't know how to write a play," explains Kapwepwe. "I told myself, 'Well, I don't think Shakespeare went to a playwright school so I'm sure I don't have to."

This is such an endearing admission.  I, too, am working on my very first play.  I conceived it five years ago, and it wasn't until this summer that I began to actively research it and sketch it out.  But first, like Kapwepwe, I have to learn how to write a play.  I am very much in the midst of that as well.  Like Kapwepwe, I am confident I can learn how to write the play I have in mind.

Reference: She's written plays, built libraries and started an orchestra... Meet Mulenga Kapwepwe, Zambia's patron of the arts.

Selfie "Stitching" Experiences in London Elevator

I don't care to have my photo taken, but I don't mind it either, if the occasion calls for it and a friend or colleague asks.  But I've come to realize that over the years there are scant such records of me.  Since returning home to Chicago, from Dubai, at the end of 2011, I have been part of family gatherings again and they're always an occasion for taking photos.  Selfies are an outcrop of that shift.  As an aspiring photographer in my 20s, I worked at composing my shots as creatively as I could and thought about the visual messages I conveyed.  Nothing profound or aesthetic necessarily with my selfies above, in the elevator of a client office building, but they're the stitching of the meetings and conversations I had there.

Adobo Restaurant in London Alleyway

In a quaint alleyway nearby the London office building of a Middle Eastern client were several restaurants.  I loved their convenience and affordability, and took note of this one in particular.  You see, adobo is a very tasty Filipino dish, dominated by pork and chicken and garnished with a smattering of vegetables.  It wasn't a Filipino restaurant obviously, but it made me pause for a moment and taste that dish in my mouth.  

Sweet Sense of Humor in London Meetings

In January this year, I had client meetings at the London offices of a major Middle Eastern oil and gas producer.  I was in their conference room, where discovered a sweet sense of humor.  It was sitting in a little dish for an hour or two, before I even realized it was there.

The Golden Lady and the Little Girl

The lady in gold is a street performer, and she was good at make-believing she is a statue-cum-robot.  When she is still, she is really still.  But when she moves, she moves slowly and haltingly.  This little girl reveled in that, and relatively approach the golden lady, who gave her a warm, robotic hug.  Sometimes children can get scared.  Sometimes, too, the statue-cum-robot startles passerby, and that can be hilarious.  This plaza is just north of the Chicago River, by the Tribune Tower, and it had a smattering of art pieces on display when we spent the afternoon and evening there for the July 4th holiday.