Day 3: Homa Bay and the Kochia Dancers Story
…a now at Homa Bay (still 1PM on your Lake Victoria dial) but a little more south and a little more west, on the south shore of the Winam Gulf. After a long drive, we set up at the hotel in a beautiful field against the lake – we’re surrounded by camels and pelicans, which is frankly a bit off putting. The pelicans are big enough to fly us away, but luckily we don’t smell like fish. We smell like a lot of other things by this time – there aren’t a…
Day 3: From Nairobi to Kigali to Kisoro Story
…ite a small town, population 12,000. On a map we are about as far west and south in Uganda as you can go. Traveller’s Rest: We stayed at the Traveller’s Rest, a hotel famed for being a meeting place for gorilla observers. They write about this on their website: “In 1955 Travellers Rest was bought by Walter Baumgartel, and quickly became a meeting place for people interested in the mountain gorilla. Amongst them was ‘gorilla-woman” Dian Fossey, who…
Kenya (Coast): Day 4 – the road back to Nairobi Story
…singer who had a project with a temple. She wanted to do a fusion between Indian and Kenyan music. A common friend brought her to the studio. She liked what we were doing and she told us about Tabu Osusa. There was a function that Tabu attended and I went as well to me. I brought a demo CD and he listened to it . This was a Friday and on Monday I went to Ketebul and was hired. Told Tabu that I didn’t have experience but wanted to be a pro studio…
Day 1: The very first field recording day for Singing Wells Story
…kilometres from Malindi, which is on the Kenyan eastern coast, against the India Ocean. It has a long history, is mostly Muslim and has been ‘discovered’ by everyone including Chinese Emperor’s in the 1400’s. Sita is a very small village with about 200 people; we recorded in a subset of the village, where all of Bado‘s brother’s and sisters lived with their families. Bado is the fourth son of Nyerere Wa Konde, who runs the Nyerere Wa Konde Music C…
The Kalenjin & Kenya’s elite athletes News
…ish took Laikipia, his ancestors were chased out of the Rift Valley to the south of Kenya. In the 1920s they eventually made an agreement with the British to allow their cows to graze in the Rift Valley again. After World War II, the British allowed war veterans to buy land in the Rift Valley and the Maasai were pushed out again. In the 1960s, after Independence, Jackie’s father moved back to the Rift Valley once again. He was a career soldier and…
Reflections on the pilot phase by Pato News
…gy not witnessed in all the previous groups recorded before. DAY 5: Kwale, South Coast We woke up to a beautiful surrounding of the Indian Ocean Beach Resort, it turned to be as beautiful as we had seen on the internet, pictures can sometimes deceive you. Breakfast was so good and we took our time especially Willy Bembe, I think by this time he had added like five kilos to his body. The distance between the hotel which was in Diani, and our set in…
Discovering music roots with SWP News
…in a unique way, different from the grainy footage of government “tourist promotional” documentaries dating from the 1960s. I was born in Nairobi 48 years ago. At 14, my future music career came to a crashing halt when I was kicked out of the school choir for miming. I wouldn’t dare sing; my voice is just a notch better than a toad’s. My attempt to learn guitar was also thwarted when my finger tips formed that kind of stuff you find on your heels…
More Ketebul voices…Steve reports from the field News
…xt ferry for the short crossing to the mainland. The drive to Diani on the south coast seemed to take forever. Exhaustion from the long day was creeping up on everyone. We checked in to the Indian Ocean Beach Resort in Ukunda, and after quick showers, we all gathered at the hotel’s restaurant, and shared our best and worst jokes over dinner and a much waited for, cold tusker. Day 5: Recording Day 03 – Kwale Breakfast the following morning was take…