Fuel for our hearts and souls, powered by the hi-octane Dilana!
You know that sometimes I like to kick off a blog post with a picture. This is one of those times. Stick around. All will become clear. Possibly.
This is Dilana. This tiny woman has a humungous presence and an even bigger voice. On Saturday night, she spoke out against landmines for the Heart & Sole Tour. We love her.
Geoff “Heartman” Brink and I are being constantly amazed by the generosity of spirit shown for our Heart and Sole unicycle tour by people we don’t even know.
We are reminded time and again that people are intrinsically good. Better than good. People are generally kind, compassionate and full of good lovingness. And when we tell them that The Heartman is about to ride a unicycle 1,700km or more to Cape Town to raise awareness of the evil of landmines, there is very little they won’t do to help the cause.
When we tell them that every 19 minutes, somewhere on our planet, somebody – and it is usually a woman or child – has their life devastated by the explosion of one of the millions of military killing devices left scattered around after wars, they are moved to feel very angry indeed. Angry that it is totally unnecessary that people continue to be maimed or killed by unexploded ordnance that is left to lie treacherously around on our earth. Earth that otherwise could be planted and harvested to feed the mostly poor nations which are especially blighted by the planting of landmines.
People like Annette Oberholster, a friend of The Heartman, who has been folding origami cranes in a desert in Qatar so that we may sell them to raise money for fuel and food for our ride which will take around six or seven weeks. OK, so the paper birdies didn’t arrive in Durban in time for us to take to the Dilana/Toni Rowland gig in Pinetown on Saturday night to exchange for 10 bucks or so with people in the audience.
We went up there anyway. To meet with Toni, the beautiful musician who is the ambassador of the Heart & Sole Tour. And to experience Dilana, who had expressed her wish to support us in any way possible. When we meet the diminutive human dynamo who is Dilana, she cannot do enough to help. During her set of heart-wrenching songs showcasing her mega-kaaaBooom voice, she gets old Heartie up on stage to intro the audience to our adventure and ask the hardcore rockers and bikers there if they would like to part with a little cash to help us out.
They did. Big-time. Beautiful hairy, leather-jacketed, multi-tattooed, Harley-riding people. Who care. Let’s have a look at what unfolded…
Dilana gives The Heartman the big intro on stage, he threw his hat into the audience... and the donations came rolling in!
R970. Nine hundred and seventy ront, people. Do you have any idea how much of total coolness that is? Couple of tanks of petrol for the old back-up truck, my babies. Thank you Dilana, Eric, Toni, Bronwyn, John, Kai and everybody else who was at VMacs in Pinetown on Saturday night. You rocked. And we rolled. And we all, like, well, y’now… yeah, rock ‘n’ rolled. For people who have had limbs blown off their bodies.
OK. I’m going to play you out with a few more pics. Because you’ll dig them. Yes. You will. You’ll see…
Bronwyn Rowland, Toni Rowland and Dilana... nice, hey?
Another kiekie of Immense Voice Woman. Just because I dig it. Do you?
This is Heartman smoking a rare cigar. Somewhere around Pinetown at 2.30am. I bought it for him before the gig for R23. Because I knew it was to be a special night. And it was. That is all. All pix: Hatman
Thank you for coming. I love you, Hatpeople. Buy a T-shirt on the way out. And please find out more about Dilana and her tour with Toni Rowland right here.
* You might have noticed that I didn’t publish an “Umdloti Interview” at the weekend. That’s right. I didn’t. And I won’t until Heartman and I get back from The Heart & Sole Tour sometime in February next year. Because it’s all about the unicycle ride now, OK? We leave in a week’s time and there’s a lot of stuff to sort out before then. Excitingness overload!
