I just returned from a small farewell party organized by the Institute Film Family at Sundowner (a bar/club just down the street from my house). A woman named Maggie Williams provided free film classes to the Cinema Centre for a month, and the members of the Cinema Centre invited me to meet her at the thank you event for her efforts. There, I reconnected with Joseph and Apollo, and I also met Eric Kabera, the producer of “100 Days,” the first film from Rwanda after the Genocide. A note on Eric – he has produced several films, three of which focus on the Genocide, but he is now moving toward other genres, such as comedy, to break out of the Genocide mold and demonstrate that there is more to Rwanda than the events of 1994. He will be at a Toronto film festival later this year to promote a new film that he has just produced about three Rwandan men who go to the World Cup.
At the event, Apollo handed me a poem he had written after our first meeting at Bourbon. He told me that he spoke very little at the event because there were so many thoughts running through his mind which he was only able to express later through poetry. I’ve never had a poem dedicated to me before, much less by a Rwandan writer, so it was a great honor. I’ve included it below. Enjoy!
The Hang Out
By Apollo Ndungutse
(A poem dedicated to Lydia Hsu)
It instead turns into a hang up
To me but not anybody else
And no one knows how I am feeling
Because I can see them smiling and requesting for business cards!
Was this the intended purpose of the promise?
An invitation for some good time out turning into a business deal!
Another hurtful is, I didn’t know her mind when she read my short message sent.
She is at the spot 70 minutes before and yet my brothers are playing me around Dallas mall
As if I am there little one when I am the First born of nine and my Mama may add the tenth
It instead turns into a Hang up
She pays for herself and if that is not enough
We are posing with watery glasses while hers is dry
Doing much of the talking and yet I am the speechless MC
Pray is power! It brings Kayi Turner and by surprise they begin discussing N Y C
Meditation strikes and my soul is running to the problem of the promise and purposeful prophecy in it.
The rope has disappeared and Noveltel story forgotten. I wanted to hang myself. This poem is dedicated to you. I will send it by email. My brothers have betrayed me and you’ve saved me. It begs pardon, I am not a designer I would have designed it for you.