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| Front seat minibus view coming out of Limbe on Friday afternoon. |
And apparently getting a bad flu as well,
but at least I’m on the mend! Last weekend, Dominique (my Canadian housemate) and I headed from Limbe – a
neighbourhood east of Blantyre where I transit through to work when I’m at
AYISE – on Friday afternoon en route to Mangochi and finally Nkapola Lodge
where the Lake of Stars festival took place. A definite downside to travelling
to new places by local mini-buses is that you have to rely a bit more on the
advice of people around you.
Friday night saw some pretty good reggae and the
UK group The Very Best as a Malawian project – so that was pretty cool. The
spot was beautiful, with the stage set up right on the beach and since Nkhapola
is situated close to the extreme south on Lake Malawi, it is fairly narrow and
you can even see Mozambique –
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| Show stealers - Freshly Ground! |
The next day, we started checking out the
villages in the area surrounding the festival, since we were curious to see how
the Festival’s model of responsible tourism was playing out in practice. At least all the hotels were fully booked,
with many people, us included, camping on hotel lawns. But I’m still interested
to know if the people in these poor communities just see a whirl of azungu and affluent Malawians, without
getting any of the benefits.
On the music side, I highly recommend for
everyone to check out Freshly Ground from South Africa, an awesomely talented
group of people. Maskal – from Lilongwe – was really great, especially because
we had a Malawian giving simultaneous translation during the entire show!
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| An excited Chinese delegation! |
As you’ve already noticed from the title of
this blog, Malawians pride themselves in being the “warm heart of Africa”, it
doesn’t just refer to the climate – and I really saw this warmth among the
people on Saturday night. You might have heard about the magnitude of Chinese
presence in Africa, and Malawi is no exception. The Government of China was a
sponsor of the event, and a Chinese Cultural Delegation performed, sandwiched
in between two reggae and R&B acts. Dressed in traditional outfits, a
handful of Chinese singers and musicians played over recorded music, which
nearly drowned them out and was a far cry from something you might expect from
a music festival in Malawi. But still people danced, cheered and encored
throughout the performance!
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| Poet and activist from Guyana |
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| Moving to his own rhythm |
All in all, a fun weekend and an ideal
introduction to regional and Malawian music. This weekend I took in Poetry
Africa, as part of the Blantyre Arts Festival, which celebrates spoken word,
songwriters, musicians and activists – individuals who contribute to social
change by making their audiences feel and understand the continent’s burning
issues in a new way. I really enjoyed TJ Dema and Chiwoniso and her mbira.
I’ll post about some cultural observations
and lessons I have learned, along with some photos of our house later tonight.
Happy Sunday!
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