Welcome to the Singing Tree Makazi!

Makazi = Swahili word meaning habitat or residence

Dear All,

My recent trip to Kenya was a joy beyond expectations. I no longer feel like a stranger in Kangweni, and experienced a new depth in the relationships with our schools, students, administrators and teachers. Mutinda’s family feels like my Kenyan family.

It feels good to be accepted and I have changed the name from ‘Singing Tree Institute’ to ‘Singing Tree Makazi’ to include that feeling of home.

From left to right: Mombé, Mutinda Jr., Lis, Mutinda Sr.

The Maviani Primary students did a fun bouncy dance-song for me on Planting Day. Check out that rhythm!

Thanks to your generosity, we added rice, greens and milk to the usual kitheri (corn and beans) meal. Maviani, Yanzuu and Manzini Primary Schools received complete meals. Syombuku, the vocational school for teens, received a sack of rice and a sack of beans.

We planted fruit trees and began planting a food forest at Maviani Primary School. The students filled up water bottles at the local reservoir and brought them to the school to water the new seedlings.

At home in the Singing Tree Nursery Mutinda, his daughters Whinnie, Ndinda and I propagated hundreds of seeds from exotic and Indigenous Trees.

Whinnie helped me remove plastic from the fields where they grow corn, beans and pigeon peas. It was really hot and dry.

We cleared dead brush from the Singing Tree Nursery site and created a space for the veggie garden in our food forest.

After doing site visits for four years in a row, I was able to see the evolution of the project in a new way and strengthen the goals that gave rise to the project in the first place.

In a traditional Kamba community and in my own ancestry, the Tree is at the heart of the Village. It was revered as an oracle. Today, whenever there is an ancient Indigenous tree in the Kamba countryside, people go and sit under it like a welcoming Grandparent. It offers shade, a resting place, comfort and somewhere to BE. There is something in our DNA that makes us gravitate to trees.

So in addition to focusing on food forests we will focus on planting Indigenous trees to help to restore the environment and cultivate that feeling of a Center to the Village. This will not happen overnight. The old trees take a long time to grow so we will plant the seeds now for future generations.

We thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your generosity and interest in our Singing Tree Project. WE wish you a healthy meal around the Thanksgiving table.

With Love & Light,

Lis Addison & David Mutinda

The Singing Tree Makazi