James Jamala Safari, poet

A
TALENTED, young refugee living in Franschhoek, James Jamala Safari
(22), has published an anthology of poems and will read them at the
restaurant Topsi & Co in Franschhoek during the Bastille Festival
(11-13 July).

James is a French and Swahili speaker who has
written poems in English only a few years after arriving in South
Africa as a refugee from war-torn South Kivu in the eastern part of the
Democratic Republic of Congo.

He is one of a group of
grassroots poets in the Franschhoek Valley who started meeting with
mentor Bill Morris to discuss their work, a creative endeavour that
came to light shortly before the first Franschhoek Literary Festival in
May last year.

James wrote, asking for the opportunity to
perform some of his poems: “This chance can be a breakthrough from the
silence that has detained me from my dream art.”

He was born
and schooled in Bukavu, where he performed poetry in numerous Sunday
school productions. He wrote his first poems at the age of 14,
dedicated to peace because his country was (and still is) in turmoil.

In
Grade 10, he and some school friends formed the Venus Club, a theatre
club that performed drama, poetry, traditional and modern music in
different venues.

When he went on to university to study
Environmental Management, he helped to form the Albatros Club which put
on environmental theatre productions for which he composed poems, songs
and sketches.

The Safari family has many sons who were vulnerable
to conscription in the army, and it was sadly decided that James and
his brother Dia should abandon their university studies and leave the
country.

He writes: “After experiencing deeply the atrocities of
wars in Kivu, I ended up in South Africa where even though hundreds of
thousands of miles away from my homeland, I suffered the consequences
of these dreadful moments of my life in severe sicknesses and horrible
memories of wars.

“Lifeless and hopeless I was as I arrived in
this strange land, but now I hold on to a new branch of life where I
can construct my future.

“It is up to me to make the best of it, joyful or painful as my life’s journey will be.

“These poems bring close my tears, worries, happiness and hopes to the people who will read them. This is my opened heart.”

He has now resumed his studies at the University of the Western Cape.

*
To book for a French dinner with poetry readings on Friday 11 July
(19:30), Saturday 12 July (13:00 and 19:30) or Sunday 13 July (13:00),
phone Topsi & Co on 021-876-2952.