Janelle MacKay, a local singer-songwriter, will host Rwanda with Love Saturday, Feb. 18 at St. Josephs Lakeside Community Centre. Proceeds from the concert will help fund her upcoming trip to Rwanda as a member of A Partnership in Caring. (Contributed photo)

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Although it has been almost one year since she returned from Africa, part of Janelle MacKay has never come home.
“I kind of feel like I have one foot in Rwanda and the rest here,” she said.
Last March, she travelled to the other side of the world as a member of A Partnership in Caring, an Antigonish-based group of healthcare professionals that makes an annual visit to the country not only to provide medical supplies, but also their knowledge in helping build the capacity of their colleagues.
The initiative started in 2008 with a group of St. F.X. nursing students making the trip as part of their clinical placements. Since then, volunteers from the Guysborough Antigonish Strait Health Authority (GASHA) and beyond have joined the mission.
MacKay, who works in the St. Martha’s Regional Hospital oncology department, brought her expertise in music and art to Rwanda last year.
“It was an unforgettable experience,” she said.
Along with seizing the opportunity to return to Rwanda to entertain hospital patients and their families, MacKay has spent the last year or so working on a special CD – one featuring tunes inspired by her first visit. It features songs performed in English and Kinyarwanda.
“It is completely different from anything that I have done, but it is the kind of music that I have always wanted to do,” she said, describing it as “world music style,” highlighted by reggae and a soul feeling.
“It is really different. I love doing it,” she said.
For MacKay it wasn’t hard to start writing the songs, considering the inspiration she received during last year’s trip.
She said she felt “really at home” in Rwanda.
“I have always known there are people less fortunate than us, but just seeing it and being exposed to another culture completely stayed with me.”
She agreed the trip affected her music, noting the rhythm-based songs found in the African country.
“It is danceable. All their music has this intense rhythm; that’s what the source of music is.
“Music in Africa, to me, is at the base of what music really is,” MacKay said.
She added people in Africa “have a beat,” noting they play music with their hands, as she clapped.
“They have these very intricate rhythms that I can’t even understand, but that has been going on for thousands of years,” MacKay noted.
She said she also discovered “music can be a great tool.”
“Especially working in the hospital there, it was healing people. It really was,” MacKay offered.
She recalled singing to women who had just given birth and children that were “on their last breath.”
“They all took joy in the music,” she said.
In planning for this year’s visit, she said she thought she needed to offer something “more medical” to the effort, but her colleagues pointed out her music and art is “as important as anything you could do medically.”

Universal appeal

Work continues on the song collection, which will benefit A Partnership in Caring. She expects to complete the seven-song CD after returning from Rwanda.
“No,” she laughed, when asked if the CD has a title.
“It’s because it is not finished yet. I still haven’t decided,” MacKay said.
That title may be still in the works, but the songs are well on their way, including Urugendo (Journey), which takes place on a mountain top.
“They see where they want to go but they don’t know how they are going to get there,” she said, noting Rwanda is known as the “land of 1,000 hills.”
“I just imagined people looking up and wondering what’s out there,” MacKay added.
With Happy, she asks people to tell her what makes them happy. She then lists what makes her happy.
“When I was there, I asked the people what makes them happy. I wrote them down and put what they told me in this song,” MacKay said.
Another tune – Mama Africa – talks about the place that has so much to share.
“It talks about how much we can learn from them,” MacKay said.
She also penned Sugar Daddy, which is the result of her partnership with a Rwandan organization that focuses on youth being abused by or being taken advantage of by what they call “sugar daddies” or “sugar mommies.”
The group will be using the song as part of an awareness campaign. While in Rwanda next month, MacKay will do a radio interview about the song and her participation in the initiative.
Although the songs carry an important message, MacKay said the goal was to allow people to sing along in both languages.
“The songs are not intricately written. They are not hard to understand,” she noted.
This CD will be her second, the first one completed in a studio setting.
“It has been a long process,” MacKay said, noting the challenges of working full-time and being a student.
“It has been a struggle because I have not been able to put all my time on it,” she added.
Whenever she gets a “creative moment, laughing, MacKay said she does work on the album.
The CD with an international theme has a definite local flavour. MacKay said the collaborators on the work include musicians such as Hugh Clarke, Mary Beth Carty, Betsy MacDonald, Greg Melchin and Brendan Melchin.

Rwanda with Love

To help fund her upcoming journey, MacKay will host Rwanda with Love Saturday, Feb. 18 at St. Josephs Lakeside Community Centre, beginning at 8 p.m.
“It has a Valentine’s Day theme,” she said.
Along with the music, MacKay said she will make a presentation regarding her work with A Partnership in Caring.
The musical line-up will feature Janelle MacKay and Company, with opening act Mary Beth Carty.
“It should be a lot of fun. The songs are celebratory, happy and fun. They should dance to them, I hope,” MacKay laughed.
Tickets are available at Brendan’s Fairway, Tall and Small Café and Bennett’s Market.
She and her colleagues with A Partnership in Caring will leave for Rwanda March 27.
For information about A Partnership in Caring, including how to make a contribution, visit www.wix.com/apartnershipincaring