adminYeukai Karengezeka-Chisepo Arts Correspondent
Buja Annual Arts and Culture Festival (BAAF) that will be held in Mutoko next month seeks to encourage the community to uphold their values as well as enhancing cultural exchange.
This will be the second edition of the event that started last year.
The BAAF festival is a culture platform for the people of Buja popularly known as ‘‘wana samutoko’’ and it celebrates the uniqueness, vibrancy and richness of the Mutoko culture.
Festival director Emmanuel Manyati said preparations are at an advanced stage for the major cultural event that will be running under the theme “Gomo Rinoera” (Sacred Mountain), Restoring Our Values Now”.
“`Preparations for the festival are at an advanced stage and many participants confirmed their attendance during the festival. The theme focuses on the sacred mountain. The event cultivates cultural pride and builds community cohesion and the objective is to identify, endorse and promote progressive
“Buja cultural and traditional values practices in order to restore cultural pride, mitigate poverty, promote women’s rights, conserve environment and preserve love, peace and harmony among Mutoko people,” he said.
Main features of the festival include Gomo Rinoera visit, Buja bush celebrations, theatre performances cultural displays and Maruva Enyika Buja women’s concert which is essential in promoting sense of pride and fostering respect of women’s dignity.
On the first day of the festival people will tour complex of Chief Mapereke who started the first tuckshop in Mutoko.
The second day people will learn about the history of Mutoko and also tour the house of Madzeka that was named the most expensive rural home in Zimbabwe in 2005.
Women performing groups, cultural dances, displays and social norms practised by women in Buja will be showcased in an event dubbed “Maruva Enyika” on the third day.
Curtains come down for the festival with a bush celebration.
In the bush there will be tents for aunt, grandmother and grandfather informing audience about the importance of extended family networks in restoring cultural values.
For the past 20 years there has been incremental erosion of Buja culture, traditional values, norms and beliefs.
This decline has been mostly perpetuated by the cultural evolvement and at times by the embracing of globalisation by the community at the expense of our traditions and cultural values.
They have partnered the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) for the event.
Online Reporter