As youthful globe-trotting gypsies, Wren McLean, Be Ward and Adam Wallace were fortunate to be hosted by the generous Motsi family while living in Zimbabwe in 1998. The Motsi’s were then a family of 11, living in the impoverished outskirts of Harare in a two-room hand-made mud brick house. With big smiles and hearts they generously took in Adam first, who did not want to stay at a racist backpacker joint where Mr Motsi worked as a security guard. Learning that Wren and Be were soon arriving in Zimbabwe to learn and share traditional music and permaculture, they built a small mud-brick room to accomodate us. We were the only white faces in these outskirts of the city, no electricity or running water. We lived in poverty with them, where 4 kids shared one blanket but no mattress and food diversity was limited to kale, salt and maize meal for most meals with avocados, white bread and meat an occasional treat. Together, we sat in the dirt playing mbira music, learnt traditional Shona songs, climbed the huge granite boulder outcrops with the kids and stated composting, worm farming and improving their sandy soil to grow garlic. Wren’s mother Susan and brother Lachlan came to visit and the kids took us to experience a real and wild traditional trance dance ceremony. During our 6 months exploring southern Africa, we were always welcomed home to theirs with song and dance. After returning home to Australia, they birthed twins and named them Wren and Be Motsi. In 2005 their home was bulldozed and they were displaced by the Mugabe Government's Operation Murambatsvina ‘Clean up the Trash', campaign to clear slums and informal settlements. Since then Wren has coordinated a humble annual donation to support them to rebuild their lives.

The Motsi family has now been told they must upgrade their hand built house to meet new Council standards with a septic, ‘proper’ bricks and a certified builder or face eviction and further displacement. We are now calling on our community, with our relative abundance, to pool small donations to help them.