Filming, birthday, tears and goodbyes

What a trip! Finally after several days of hard work the filming has been completed. Hundreds of shots, sound proofs, forgotten lines, retakes and loads of sweat...and it´s done. Everything that we wanted on film has been recorded.

Dzikwa choir, marimba players, drummers, dancers and actors performed a wonderful show at the stage of Harare International School. All were doing their best though it was a long day. Small dancer girls continued hour after hour with a smile on their face, actors performed their plays and read poems by heart, the choir sang on Shona language the rhythms of Zimbabwe. The Dzikwa students are truly talented.

We also visited Imire Game Ranch with some orphaned children accompanying us and got to film the wildlife of Africa. Rare species like lions, hyenas, giraffes, elephants, black and white rhinos, several types of antelopes, crocodiles, zebras, gnus, buffalos, impalas and many others. Everything filmed and we even managed to record the rhinos discussing with their tiny squeaks!

Our last day in Harare was full packed with filming. We visited the forestry project and several schools. We filmed children in their class rooms, singing to welcome us or eating their daily meal. We took sound tracks of Seppo explaining about the operations at the Dzikwa Trust Activity Center and visited homes of some orphan children.

At the end we have about 600 minutes of video clips. What we still need is EDITING. Linnea will spend her free time cutting and editing the material into a 30 minutes story. Some work to do for the dark and cold autumn nights in Finland :0).

Our trip continued to Victoria Falls and we left Harare early Friday morning. On our last Harare day we also celebrated Luukas’  14^th birthday with some pancake breakfast and a nice meal at Miller’s café with singing waiters! But we had to say goodbye to our sponsored children too. A sad moment. Many tears were shed and hugs given at the time of farewell. It is so difficult to leave all the children, so much work remains undone. But we may return as we know that Zimbabwe has so much kindness and love to offer to its friends. Until then we continue our efforts to support the children from Finland.

Annika