I just received an email from Kindo and I wanted to share it with you. We’ve talked a little bit in other posts and in writing the treatment for this film, about how these youth use music as a language and how they tell their stories through their rhymes and verses. Kindo sent me a short email, letting me know that the msela are all Poa (cool) and still living in the house, and included this poem/verse at the end that I thought was really sweet. As a filmmaker, it also makes me (desperately) want to go back and hear those things that Kindo didn’t get a chance to tell us about himself and his life in the short time we were there.

MZUKS!!!!*
Everything’s pretty good, all Masela are living in the same house.
except me, I’m still living at that camp till after I finish the
skool on October.

I had so many things to tell you
But times passed like a bullet
I remember the days,
Wandering in the streets
And eating ‘ugali’ from the restaurants
Then you flew away across the deep oceans
Between the blue skies.

Kindo is one of two msela (from our group) that is attending school. While we were in Dar, Urban Project paid for his school fees for one year and bought him a new school uniform (seen in image). Kindo is now living in a housing facility provided to him by an NGO in Dar es Salaam. Kindo is also an accomplised artist and created the artwork for the album cover, as well as designing the layout (in a dusty downtown alley, with Jay’s help and a laptop!)

* msukz is short for mzuka, which basically means “fresh” in current Swahili street slang .

On August 25, 2008, Danya was interviewed about the Urban Project and Bongo, prior to the trip to Tanzania, on the CBC radio show “On the Coast“.

Listen to the interview below!

Great article and interview with Danya Fast, Urban Project Exec. Director. Check it out.