Connection, Collaboration and Contribution
I so desperately want to blog tonight but I am tired, tired, tired. It was a grueling day in some respects AND totally wonderful and exciting in others. Jabbes and I had an excellent pre-production meeting about locations, actors and all that sort of thing. It was so very productive. We had several other interesting conversations (some of which should have been ON camera) including one about racism, another about his childhood and his mother and, finally, one about differences between Zambian and U.S. communication.
Toward the end, he said something that really inspired me. I have always said that I want to emphasize the collaboration between me and Jabbes, MCC and Lusaka, Arizona and Zambia. I want the connection to be evident and the mutual benefit obvious. Since we're helping with the first feature film in the country, our contribution is easy to measure. Today, Jabbes and I were talking and I was saying that I was really wanting the film program at MCC to grow and that I thought these two projects would really help that. "Wouldn't it be wonderful," he said, "if one day you are able to say the the film program at MCC grew because of the contribution of a man from Zambia!"
In that moment, I was dumbfounded because the connection, collaboration and contribution was so apparent to me.
Most recently, we have started to discuss a Faculty and Student Exchange Program between Zambia and MCC. I am so excited because, if everything goes according to plan and all of the money falls into place, Rodney Holmes (Dean of Instruction at MCC), Kai Kim and Gingher Leyendecker will come to Lusaka at the end of the film shoot to meet with the University's Principal Director and Faculty body about an ongoing exchange program.
It would be so awesome! Today, Jabbes was telling me that the women in the villages love to create batiked fabric. I am anxious to bring some home with me. Sometimes, I think I need to pinch myself to believe this is really real.
