Pippi Longstocking at Harare City Library

Pippi Longstocking is a fictional character (but she was at the Harare City Library today). What a hectic but entertaining 3 hours we had at the Renovation Project Launch.

Speechification followed by some, erm.....interesting? violin playing by some young ladies from Mabelreign Girls High School (I would have heard the Henry Olonga tune better if it wasn’t for those darned cats screeching....) and of course, Pippi.

Pippi appears in a series of children's books by Swedish author Astrid Lingdren (and has been adapted into multiple films and television series).

Nine-year-old Pippi is unconventional, assertive, and has superhuman strength ( being able to lift her horse one-handed without difficulty). She frequently mocks and dupes adults she encounters (ki ki ki), an attitude likely to appeal to young readers. However, Pippi usually reserves her absolutely worst behaviour for the most pompous and condescending of adults. Pippi's anger is reserved for the most extreme cases, such as when a man ill-treats her horse. Like Peter Pan, Pippi does not want to grow up (and why should she people!). She is the daughter of a buccaneer captain (the stories were written and published in the 1940’s but publishers keep it updated) and as such has adventurous stories to tell. She has four best friends, two animals (her horse and a monkey) and two humans, the neighbour's children Tommy and Annika.

Part of Pippi’s story was read in English, Shona and Ndebele by three youngsters (very interesting, Pippi imagines her father has become a king of cannibals over in wild Iceland and the Shona translation for cannibal king was 'mambo anodya vana' and in Ndebele??? ...translations can be fun:)

Anyways, 100 books were handed over in a token gesture to start the 1 million renovation and banners were hung as people celebrated (go Sweden, go Sweden) and lots and lots of networking afterwards.  Cool.

Too much for this blog to tell all at once so I will leave you with a picture of some young Chipawo stars [www.chipawo.org] who entertained the crowd and were treated to eats, fizzy pop and music afterwards (as were the children who attended from 6 different schools around Harare). Gorgeous.