Poetry & places

for storytellers &

wayfarers

The creature in this house

longs to be set loose

like a cat who is not without home

but chooses rooftops and nights

that can hold anything…

Programs

Tree Dwellers Writing Residency

Treehouse gatherings in Ruwa, Zimbabwe for local and international

writers who are stretching the bounds of possibility.

Writing Workshops

Weekend retreats where we explore, revive, and hone creative dreams.

Wilding Retreats

in Zimbabwe’s National Parks

Creative adventures in Zimbabwe’s National Parks

with Jenna van de Ruit & Richard Maasdorp

© Simon Blankley

Instigators

Jenna van de Ruit

Jenna van de Ruit thinks magic is where imagination meets its reality. She is Founder and Director of Treehouse Diaries, the Tree Tellers Writing Residency Program, and co-founder of Guided by Carmine. She grew up in Zimbabwe and returned after she finished high school in Singapore on a scholarship at the United World College of South East Asia, studied Animal Behavior and Sociology at Dartmouth College in the US, and did a Masters in Creative Writing.

She loves to physically embody the questions she’s following. In Singapore, parkour gave her a language to engage with a city of rules, and the walls, once barriers, became something she could move over. She has filmed in Chile, sought wisdom in the eye of a whale in Mozambique, and practiced renunciation in Chimanimani mountains. In Mana, she is learning how to want, and how to bring in her wants like birds that land in branches. She thinks she may count as a tree sometimes, since a nightape is living on her. 

Richard Maasdorp

Richard Maasdorp shares a deep friendship with the Zambezi Valley. He is co-founder of The Zambezi Elephant Fund and was Strategic Director of Zambezi Society, which he headed for over a decade. His first career was as a civil engineer who directed a construction company that built dams across Southern Africa. His second vocation has been sharing his love for Zimbabwe’s wild spaces and creatures.

At first driven by a mid-life transition, he had forced himself to camp out for five to seven days at a time in Mana Pools, alone and unarmed. He would walk off into the morning without a particular destination in mind, with a notebook in his pocket, and write down things that struck him.

“Maybe love is too strong a word but you build a bond with some of these animals beyond just calling them a rhino,” he said. They would find his fire, and he would fall asleep to them standing over the embers. The metaphors and messages the Valley gave him were like gifts. Some became poems.

Selected Interview

TimeOut: “Five of the world’s wildest places and the people who are working to keep them that way.”

© Steven Chikosi