Dust and Rain

Chipo and Chibwe save the Green Valley


By Ruth Hartley

Published by Gadsden
Dust and Rain cover

Two children make a perilous journey through the heart of modern and magical Africa to save their parents’ farm in the Green Valley from drought and climate change.

Kambili and the drought arrive in a whirlwind of dust into the lives of CHIPO, an eleven-year-old girl with a special gift, and her brother, CHIBWE.

Without rain, the family can’t grow food. so the children run away to find Makemba, the Wise Woman in the Evergreen Forest who can teach them how to keep their valley green.

They are kidnapped by criminals but escape and have extraordinary adventures as they journey to find Makemba and then take her magical river water to save the Valley and end the drought.



Hello Children!

I wrote my new book Dust and Rain especially for you. Tell me what you think and I promise to reply.


DUST
and
RAIN
Chipo and Chibwe Save the Green Valley "Absolutely brilliant"

This story is inspired by young people telling the world to act now to heal climate change. Chipo and Chibwe fear the drought on their parents' farm. To find a solution, they journey bravely across Zambia and down the Zambezi River. They face terrible dangers, but wonderful people and animals help them, and they return wiser and stronger to save the Green Valley.

I will do my best to answer your questions and I want to read your own stories about climate change. I may even publish some here!*

Yours for our Earth,
Ruth

      Dear Ruth,




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    "The book is very vivid and the characters are great and very well described. I liked it so much that I think everyone should read it."
    Anna Brandis aged 12

    Mpapa Monograph

    A personal account of the history of Mpapa Gallery, Lusaka, Zambia from 1978 to 1996


    By Ruth Hartley

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    The Mpapa Gallery was begun by Joan Pilcher, Heather Montgomerie, Cynthia Zukas, Patrick Mweemba and me, all people who were passionate about art and positive about the newly independent country of Zambia.

    So too, were all the people who connected with the gallery as artists, art enthusiasts, art collectors, art advisors, funders and supporters, workers, managers, visitors and friends. Art galleries almost never make any money, so they are usually run as charities with endowments. Above all, it is the creative people and artists who make it possible. All forms of the creative arts are the lifeblood of every nation.



    I always thought that the personal is political and my personal art is political. It’s not a choice but a fact of life.

    I learned more about making art from the time I spent working with artists in Zambia and at Mpapa Gallery than I ever learned at art school. I was lucky because I did have inspiring teachers who made me realise that nobody teaches another person how to be creative – all you can do is open doors in hearts and minds and encourage curiosity, critical thinking and problem solving.

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    RUTH HARTLEY

    A writer and artist of borderlines who is swimming like Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland in an absurd sea of giant tears because she carries no passport for any reachable shore. Unlike the hero of Salman Rushdie’s Haroon and the Sea of Stories, Ruth has no identifiable villain like Khattum-Shud, the destroyer of Stories and the poisoner of the Sources of Inspiration to defeat. To put is simply, Ruth was born at a time and a place that has vanished and presently she writes books and makes art in a digital world that is dissolving the permanence of paper. The story of colonialism, illiteracy, the Cold War, misogyny, capitalism and rapid change form the background to Ruth’s art and writing which questions identity, memory, trauma, purpose and action.

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