You don’t want to name your child Asif. It’s a silly name, even though it’s a take on the biblical name Asaph who was a major part of King David’s team.
But naming a cow Asif Zamir? Yup, a cow in Rwanda has been named Asif Zamir in my honor.
Why? Becuase I donated money to a theater company in Rwanda, so that women can perform their stories at the largest art festival in Africa. Yup, the largest art festival in Africa!
Five women, including a poet, a few actresses, a couple Americans, a pop star, a singer, a radio personality, several dancers, three Rwandans all raised in different countries, and even a puppeteer. Using movement, dance, poetry, puppets, personal testimony, and their wits, they’ve written a new theater piece. They explore questions of nations, bodies and borders, of what it means to be local in this messy, globalized world.
Travel within Africa isn’t cheap (go ahead, look up travel costs TO and IN Africa right now, I dare you…you probably won’t do it, because your a lazy bum), and the festival is unable to provide housing for so many artists. Anyway this whole thing cost around $4,300 and 71 donors including me covered the cost. This is not a business project, just a straight giving project to make a LOT of African women smile.
In terms of Rwanda, I’ve participated in building several orphanages and several long term child-care programs. For those of you who don’t know, 1 million people in Rwanda were murdered in 100 days back in the 90’s.
I have good friends who survived the ordeal and now live in Canada, and I’ve had dinner with people who still live in Rwanda today, rebuilding the nation. – Asif Zamir
