wakingup kumuka despertarse songlist and notes 1 TirikuTenda Amai hear audio sample: real player | mp3  We thank you Mother We sing in praise of all the good women in our lives...from the youngest ones to our Grandmothers. This is also a story of a little girl whose parents love her so much. A blessed family. A celebration song. 2 Mamba Kwedza hear audio sample: real player | mp3 This morning I’m going, Fathers and Mothers, up into the mountain to pray. In silence I’m walking to the waterfall to bathe in sacred water. With my companions I’m going, Sisters and Brothers. We’ll clean and heal our hearts there. Today we’ll pray together in the Sweat Lodge then I’m going, my relatives, alone into the desert, under sun and stars, wind and rain...Nine days of prayer, seeking guidance from God Almighty and the spririts of my Ancestors, in the early dawn when the elephants bathe. Handei Mamba Kwedza. 3 Dear children... How I wish this one weren’t a true story. 4 Rio Mambokadzi River of the Woman Chief. I was thinking of Creation...I heard her sing as I approached. Our Mother sang and I was there, just seeing the Water she pulls across her body unto the ocean...And my body made of water. Mama sings of Love. She is a river above me, I sit in her shadow. She sings a true story and the clouds cry and I was there...just watching the fire she throws toward the ground. As her waters fell from the sky she sang. Think about Earth so you won’t forget her. Sing about your Earth, your forgotten Mother. Our Mother sings in the hills. I was there on the mesa, hearing the Wind she pulls across her body, unto my blood...She makes my blood live. Rio Mambokadzi River of the Woman Chief. I was thinking of the Creation... 5 KuRota neVakura Grandmothers, you gave me a gift. A calabash gourd. I knew this beautiful Deze to be my grandfather and carried him in my arms, wandering the outskirts of Harare, Zimbabwe, where the city meets the bush. It was there that he suddenly jumped from my arms and went rolling away from me down a dirt road. An old truck roared past and crushed Grandfather Deze and was gone, leaving me to weep there, alone. This dream reminds me that modern life is destroying ancient cultures whose wisdom is so valuable to us today. 6 Renacido con Tambor Music is healing. A sacred place. Sisters and Brothers, do your spiritual work...in peace and without shame, remembering the children, remembering the Earth. 7 Nguva Haisimari Time is not money. Modern life is much too fast and complicated. How can we respect each other when we’re in such a hurry. I like to move slow. I’m not in a hurry. My time on this planet is a sacred journey and I look to ancient cultures who know the Earth as sacred. This is what I choose... 8 VandiYeuka They remember me. A lonely man sits in his hut and cries, “have you forgotten me, ancestral spririts?” He walks the footpaths of his village in the cold singing “have you forgotten me, my relatives and friends?” even though the spririts guide him and send many blessings, even though his family and friends embrace him with love. When he wakes up, spritually, he finds that it is he who has forgotten to acknowledge them. “Please forgive me,” he sings... 9 …en sus Tierras A list of names, only a few of the multitude of tribes who had inhabited Central and North America for thousands of years by the time we Europeans came here and discovered the place. 10 Haliksai’i Another list. Peoples of the south, mostly South America. Many of them extinct at the hands of my European ancestors. Wakan Tanka, Almighty God, please forgive and correct our arrogant and disrespectful behavior towards the earth and each other, which continues to this day. — Sadza, May 1999