CELEBRATING MILES & COLTRANE

KIND OF BLUE



&
GIANT STEPS



50TH ANNIVERSARY

{Read more here}

KIND OF BLUE



&
GIANT STEPS



50TH ANNIVERSARY

{Read more here}

CARNAVAIS...

O de Luanda vem a caminho.
Este e' o de Stellenbosch, feito anualmente pelos estudantes da Universidade local. Aconteceu faz hoje exactamente quinze dias. Chamam-lhe Jools ou Rag e e' tudo muito bonito, muito interesssante, muito animado e... muito barulhento!
Ou seja, nao exactamente o tipo de coisa que se quer ter por perto quando tudo o que se quer e desesperadamente precisa e' dormir, como aqui me queixei ha' dias...
Mas acabei por decidir que "se nao os podes vencer/bater, junta-te a eles"!
E o resultado foram estas fotos:

You Must Neva - Paul Hanmer

O de Luanda vem a caminho.
Este e' o de Stellenbosch, feito anualmente pelos estudantes da Universidade local. Aconteceu faz hoje exactamente quinze dias. Chamam-lhe Jools ou Rag e e' tudo muito bonito, muito interesssante, muito animado e... muito barulhento!
Ou seja, nao exactamente o tipo de coisa que se quer ter por perto quando tudo o que se quer e desesperadamente precisa e' dormir, como aqui me queixei ha' dias...
Mas acabei por decidir que "se nao os podes vencer/bater, junta-te a eles"!
E o resultado foram estas fotos:

You Must Neva - Paul Hanmer

KUDURO NO FT

Acabo de receber esta noticia do Luis:

Buraka Som Sistema play kuduro by way of Portugal, where a large Angolan population has helped spread the music. Alas your correspondent isn’t expert enough about the nightclub scene in either Luanda or Lisbon to tell exactly how authentic the troupe’s version of kuduro is – but such niceties were swept aside by their extraordinarily propulsive concert at the Scala.

The set was drawn from last year’s excellent album Black Diamond. Music came from a trio playing two sets of drums, synthesisers and a laptop, while a further trio of MCs – two men and a woman – bounced round the stage delivering shouty, punk-meets-ragga vocals.

Genres bounced around like pinballs. Carnival klaxons split the air alongside Daft Punk and Prodigy samples. “Aqui Para Voces” borrowed the animated Miami bass and samba drums of Brazilian funk. “General” morphed between Afropop and electropop. “Sound of Kuduro” was based around a playground chant and hammering dance beats.

Continue a ler aqui.

{Ainda nao vos contei de como na minha ultima ida a Lisboa viajei com os Buraca Sound System, pois nao?}

Acabo de receber esta noticia do Luis:

Buraka Som Sistema play kuduro by way of Portugal, where a large Angolan population has helped spread the music. Alas your correspondent isn’t expert enough about the nightclub scene in either Luanda or Lisbon to tell exactly how authentic the troupe’s version of kuduro is – but such niceties were swept aside by their extraordinarily propulsive concert at the Scala.

The set was drawn from last year’s excellent album Black Diamond. Music came from a trio playing two sets of drums, synthesisers and a laptop, while a further trio of MCs – two men and a woman – bounced round the stage delivering shouty, punk-meets-ragga vocals.

Genres bounced around like pinballs. Carnival klaxons split the air alongside Daft Punk and Prodigy samples. “Aqui Para Voces” borrowed the animated Miami bass and samba drums of Brazilian funk. “General” morphed between Afropop and electropop. “Sound of Kuduro” was based around a playground chant and hammering dance beats.

Continue a ler aqui.

{Ainda nao vos contei de como na minha ultima ida a Lisboa viajei com os Buraca Sound System, pois nao?}

EDICAO ESPECIAL

recebi-as ha’ dias da Lua, de presente,
essas vozes da Bethania e da Omara


e’ assim mesmo, sem titulo,
so’ ‘edicao especial’
(em CD e DVD)


Poema LXIV - Palabras/Palavras

da Bethania fez-me lembrar do quanto tempo ha’ que nao a ouvia, desde quando comprava todos e cada um dos seus albuns e assistia a todo e cada um dos seus espectaculos no Coliseu dos Recreios, em Lisboa


da Omara lembrou-me do quanto pouco conheco a sua musica, para alem de a ter ouvido naquela famosa colectanea do Buena Vista Social Club, se nao me engano


Voce

juntaram maos e vozes para cumplicemente cantar e falar de voce, de amores e de palabras, suspiros, marambaias, paixoes, arrependimentos e mil congojas


e assim as dedico, neste ‘dia especial’, especialmente a quem mas mandou e a quem mas trouxe


Talvez

e mais a toda(o)s a(o)s outra(o)s amorada(o)s da vida


saboreiem-nas

recebi-as ha’ dias da Lua, de presente,
essas vozes da Bethania e da Omara


e’ assim mesmo, sem titulo,
so’ ‘edicao especial’
(em CD e DVD)


Poema LXIV - Palabras/Palavras

da Bethania fez-me lembrar do quanto tempo ha’ que nao a ouvia, desde quando comprava todos e cada um dos seus albuns e assistia a todo e cada um dos seus espectaculos no Coliseu dos Recreios, em Lisboa


da Omara lembrou-me do quanto pouco conheco a sua musica, para alem de a ter ouvido naquela famosa colectanea do Buena Vista Social Club, se nao me engano


Voce

juntaram maos e vozes para cumplicemente cantar e falar de voce, de amores e de palabras, suspiros, marambaias, paixoes, arrependimentos e mil congojas


e assim as dedico, neste ‘dia especial’, especialmente a quem mas mandou e a quem mas trouxe


Talvez

e mais a toda(o)s a(o)s outra(o)s amorada(o)s da vida


saboreiem-nas

HOJE E’ DIA!

DE

VESTIR

ESTA

SAITA

PORQUE

HOJE

E' SABADO!!!

DE

VESTIR

ESTA

SAITA

PORQUE

HOJE

E' SABADO!!!

MASEKELA AND THE SAILORMAN

In 1976 we recorded an album called “Colonial Man” for Casablanca Records with a group of musicians I had assembled from Ghana and Nigeria. This was our second album after the popular “The Boyz Doin’ It”. We were touring the USA when our producer Stewart Levine said “We need to record a second album, Neil Bogart wants it right away”. That was when I proposed that we explore the colonial theme and do songs about the European pioneers of countless expeditions that took place in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries to establish European territories outside the continental mainland.

England, France, Portugal and Spain were obsessed with this exercise, sending people such as Stanley, Johnstone, Cecil Rhodes, Livingstone, Vasco da Gama, Henry The Navigator, Ponce De Leon, Cortez, Christopher Columbus, Sir George Grey, Sir Harry Smith, Simon Van Der Stel, Jan van Riebeeck and tens of other adventurers, pirates, geologists, bankers, financiers and historians out into Asia, The Americas, The South Pacific and Africa for the purpose of establishing new dominions for their exploitation.

Little did I know that most had never heard about the above mentioned characters and did not care much about the history, that the record industry in America did not give a hoot about the colonial past, and almost every distributor in the country would send the shipments back to the record companies because they did not understand what we were singing about. “Who the hell are all these guys Hugh is talking about and who cares?” was the general response. Needless to say, not even my friends bought the album.

Anyway, Vasco da Gama was the first navigator to establish the sea route that circumvented Africa via the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa en route to Asia. The purpose was to collect precious stones, spices and condiments prior to the opening of the shorter route via the Suez Canal.

Khaya Mahlangu pays tribute to the great Caribbean Salsa flautist such as Pacheco on the picollo and flute and John Selolwane applauds the great guitar styles of Jimmy Hendrix and Carlos Santana. Cha-Cha-Cha enthusiasts will indeed be ecstatic to hit the dance floor in memory of the style of music and we shall always be indebted to the wonderful musicians who pioneered this groove in Cuba at the beginning of the last century.

Hugh Masekela, 2000

Vasco da Gama (The Sailorman) - Hugh Masekela

In 1976 we recorded an album called “Colonial Man” for Casablanca Records with a group of musicians I had assembled from Ghana and Nigeria. This was our second album after the popular “The Boyz Doin’ It”. We were touring the USA when our producer Stewart Levine said “We need to record a second album, Neil Bogart wants it right away”. That was when I proposed that we explore the colonial theme and do songs about the European pioneers of countless expeditions that took place in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries to establish European territories outside the continental mainland.

England, France, Portugal and Spain were obsessed with this exercise, sending people such as Stanley, Johnstone, Cecil Rhodes, Livingstone, Vasco da Gama, Henry The Navigator, Ponce De Leon, Cortez, Christopher Columbus, Sir George Grey, Sir Harry Smith, Simon Van Der Stel, Jan van Riebeeck and tens of other adventurers, pirates, geologists, bankers, financiers and historians out into Asia, The Americas, The South Pacific and Africa for the purpose of establishing new dominions for their exploitation.

Little did I know that most had never heard about the above mentioned characters and did not care much about the history, that the record industry in America did not give a hoot about the colonial past, and almost every distributor in the country would send the shipments back to the record companies because they did not understand what we were singing about. “Who the hell are all these guys Hugh is talking about and who cares?” was the general response. Needless to say, not even my friends bought the album.

Anyway, Vasco da Gama was the first navigator to establish the sea route that circumvented Africa via the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa en route to Asia. The purpose was to collect precious stones, spices and condiments prior to the opening of the shorter route via the Suez Canal.

Khaya Mahlangu pays tribute to the great Caribbean Salsa flautist such as Pacheco on the picollo and flute and John Selolwane applauds the great guitar styles of Jimmy Hendrix and Carlos Santana. Cha-Cha-Cha enthusiasts will indeed be ecstatic to hit the dance floor in memory of the style of music and we shall always be indebted to the wonderful musicians who pioneered this groove in Cuba at the beginning of the last century.

Hugh Masekela, 2000

Vasco da Gama (The Sailorman) - Hugh Masekela

KENYA YETU: HAKUNA MATATA? (II)

I have to do this:

Requiem for Good Old Lady Burberry’s

The good old lady is a genuine Burberry’s suitcase that has been faultlessly and efficiently helping me through my travels for almost a decade now. Yet, difficult as it is to separate one from the other, it’s not the label that I mourn, but the quality: she has gone through countless air miles and some of the roughest airports in the world, mostly in Africa, in various airlines and through it all never let me down. I guess that on that account she should have earned by now all the special treatments afforded to ‘frequent flyers’ by any airline in the world. Except perhaps by Kenya Airways (KA)…

Interestingly enough, while on the check-in line for the first of the three flights that took me from Cape Town (CT) to Mombasa, via Johannesburg and Nairobi, having noticed some clued-up passengers having their luggage all wrapped up, I commented something like “there’s something I should but never do”…

I traveled on South African Airways (SA) to Nairobi, where I had to check-in again on a KA flight to Mombasa (my first time on the airline and the country). But before I could do that, I went through the most exhausting ordeal, during about two hours of back and forth through long corridors, just to get 50 dollars from the various bureaux d’exchange located inside the airport to pay for my entry visa in the country – only citizen residents of the East African Community get any special treatment in that respect in Kenya, something that I wasn’t previously aware of, and they will only accept dollars for visas.

All that to and fro, carrying along my handbag plus a heavy trolley containing laptop, books and some working documents, proved unsuccessful, forcing me to leave the airport, with the permission of a customs officer who felt like helping, to withdraw local money from an ATM located outside and exchange it for dollars at another exchange bureau, also past the airport border, after which I started to see light at the end of the tunnel…

Only to be denied entry to the airport again, until – after dragging myself and my bags through various entrances around the airport, all at considerable distance from each other, without being allowed to get in through any of them – a sympathetic airport employee, seeing my state of absolute despair, took me through the back doors to a customs office, from where I was taken back again to the customs counter inside the airport and finally got the visa. I could then freely pass the border and finally go to the carousel to collect my luggage. Good old lady Burberry’s was awaiting me nearby in the same condition I had checked her in at CT airport.

I finally arrived in Mombasa past mid-night, at which point I had been traveling since 5:30 a.m. the previous day… When good old lady Burberry’s showed up in the carousel, she was no longer as I last saw her in Nairobi: the zip ends had been cut off and the padlock was missing. I just (re)started crying… Well, to cut a long story short, I spent the next more than two hours trying to get someone, among airport security, police, customs and KA officers, to acknowledge the damage done to my bags (there was another one, but no damage had been done to it, perhaps because it wasn’t of such a recognisable label, apart from also missing the padlock).

They wouldn’t. All I got from all of them was total collusion, mockery and complete disregard for whatever I said… If anything, when they said something was only to anger me with the most pathetic attempts to deny the obvious and defend the indefensable! Until someone, perhaps on taking notice of my mention to the practice by any serious, competent and professional national flagship airline to register complaints about damaged luggage in a special form to that effect, got one such form to be filled in. I was then able to leave the airport to the hotel, more than 20km away, where I arrived as good as dead meat at past 3:00 a.m. (almost 24 hours since I left CT) facing the prospect of having to deliver a few hours later in that morning the first scheduled presentation at the workshop for which I had traveled all that way to Mombasa…

The following day I started corridors again to get KA to do something about the state they left good old lady Burberry’s in, i.e. unusable, as she was, for my return journey, even though, apparently nothing had been taken from her contents. After being put, for the next four successive days, through different people in different offices, they finally decided, on the eve of my departure, to collect the suitcase from the hotel and see what they would do about it promising to return it repaired or adequately replaced on that same day. Again to cut a long story short, they didn’t return the suitcase, un-repaired and un-replaced, until the next day and five minutes before I was supposed to leave the hotel to get my flight out of Mombasa… needless to say, I lost that flight and was only lucky enough to get on the next, just in time to catch the connecting flight to Johannesburg, where I arrived at around 12:00 a.m. and had to spend the night to get the final flight back to CT the following morning.

Only that this time I made sure at the Mombasa airport that good old lady Burberry’s was all wrapped-up, as if finally dead for good… and KA still hasn’t fully acknowledged responsibility for the damage, or liability for its reparation. Ah! And throughout this entire saga I never heard from anyone at KA words such as “our apologies”, or “we are sorry”, or “can we be of any assistance to you”, which, just as the words “please” or “thank you”, seem to be in short supply in the Kenyan English dictionary – just as the simple, congenial, African smile doesn’t seem to go well with the faces of staff in charge of whatever thing in Kenya Yetu, not even with the faces of KA’s flight assistants, particularly if they are facing other Africans, sorry to say…

And to cap it all up, when I arrived in CT, good old lady Burberry’s didn’t show up in the carousel… But by then I was so exhausted that I didn’t even have enough physical or emotional energy left in me to despair. So, I just filled in the missing-luggage forms that were promptly availed to me and other passengers in a similar predicament by the SA customer office and went home with only on thing in mind: get some good old sleep! Which I couldn’t, because it was ‘Jool’s Day’ – the Stellenbosh University’s students Carnaval, whose main parade happens exactly along my street…

Anyway, about three to four hours later, I received a call from SA saying that my old lady had just arrived from where she had been left behind in Jo’burg for whatever reason and a courier would be sent straight away to deliver it to me. And so it was. In the brief chat we had, I mentioned just how happy I was to be reunited with her given all that we had been through in Kenya which had forced me to have her all wrapped up, to which the courier, a white Afrikaans guy, said: “you know, you should always do that when you travel to African countries, because black people, sorry to say but that’s what happens, like to cut and scratch the luggage and steal the contents!”… I said nothing back, but thought to myself, “if only all those KA and Mombasa airport’s staff realised how many people gave their lives not to ever hear anything like that again in our lifetimes”!

Yet, they call themselves “the pride of Africa” and sport a slogan according to which “with KA African pride is flying high”!
Is it?!

As a proud African, I was made by KA not to be proud of such ‘African Airline’…

Sorry to say!

I have to do this:

Requiem for Good Old Lady Burberry’s

The good old lady is a genuine Burberry’s suitcase that has been faultlessly and efficiently helping me through my travels for almost a decade now. Yet, difficult as it is to separate one from the other, it’s not the label that I mourn, but the quality: she has gone through countless air miles and some of the roughest airports in the world, mostly in Africa, in various airlines and through it all never let me down. I guess that on that account she should have earned by now all the special treatments afforded to ‘frequent flyers’ by any airline in the world. Except perhaps by Kenya Airways (KA)…

Interestingly enough, while on the check-in line for the first of the three flights that took me from Cape Town (CT) to Mombasa, via Johannesburg and Nairobi, having noticed some clued-up passengers having their luggage all wrapped up, I commented something like “there’s something I should but never do”…

I traveled on South African Airways (SA) to Nairobi, where I had to check-in again on a KA flight to Mombasa (my first time on the airline and the country). But before I could do that, I went through the most exhausting ordeal, during about two hours of back and forth through long corridors, just to get 50 dollars from the various bureaux d’exchange located inside the airport to pay for my entry visa in the country – only citizen residents of the East African Community get any special treatment in that respect in Kenya, something that I wasn’t previously aware of, and they will only accept dollars for visas.

All that to and fro, carrying along my handbag plus a heavy trolley containing laptop, books and some working documents, proved unsuccessful, forcing me to leave the airport, with the permission of a customs officer who felt like helping, to withdraw local money from an ATM located outside and exchange it for dollars at another exchange bureau, also past the airport border, after which I started to see light at the end of the tunnel…

Only to be denied entry to the airport again, until – after dragging myself and my bags through various entrances around the airport, all at considerable distance from each other, without being allowed to get in through any of them – a sympathetic airport employee, seeing my state of absolute despair, took me through the back doors to a customs office, from where I was taken back again to the customs counter inside the airport and finally got the visa. I could then freely pass the border and finally go to the carousel to collect my luggage. Good old lady Burberry’s was awaiting me nearby in the same condition I had checked her in at CT airport.

I finally arrived in Mombasa past mid-night, at which point I had been traveling since 5:30 a.m. the previous day… When good old lady Burberry’s showed up in the carousel, she was no longer as I last saw her in Nairobi: the zip ends had been cut off and the padlock was missing. I just (re)started crying… Well, to cut a long story short, I spent the next more than two hours trying to get someone, among airport security, police, customs and KA officers, to acknowledge the damage done to my bags (there was another one, but no damage had been done to it, perhaps because it wasn’t of such a recognisable label, apart from also missing the padlock).

They wouldn’t. All I got from all of them was total collusion, mockery and complete disregard for whatever I said… If anything, when they said something was only to anger me with the most pathetic attempts to deny the obvious and defend the indefensable! Until someone, perhaps on taking notice of my mention to the practice by any serious, competent and professional national flagship airline to register complaints about damaged luggage in a special form to that effect, got one such form to be filled in. I was then able to leave the airport to the hotel, more than 20km away, where I arrived as good as dead meat at past 3:00 a.m. (almost 24 hours since I left CT) facing the prospect of having to deliver a few hours later in that morning the first scheduled presentation at the workshop for which I had traveled all that way to Mombasa…

The following day I started corridors again to get KA to do something about the state they left good old lady Burberry’s in, i.e. unusable, as she was, for my return journey, even though, apparently nothing had been taken from her contents. After being put, for the next four successive days, through different people in different offices, they finally decided, on the eve of my departure, to collect the suitcase from the hotel and see what they would do about it promising to return it repaired or adequately replaced on that same day. Again to cut a long story short, they didn’t return the suitcase, un-repaired and un-replaced, until the next day and five minutes before I was supposed to leave the hotel to get my flight out of Mombasa… needless to say, I lost that flight and was only lucky enough to get on the next, just in time to catch the connecting flight to Johannesburg, where I arrived at around 12:00 a.m. and had to spend the night to get the final flight back to CT the following morning.

Only that this time I made sure at the Mombasa airport that good old lady Burberry’s was all wrapped-up, as if finally dead for good… and KA still hasn’t fully acknowledged responsibility for the damage, or liability for its reparation. Ah! And throughout this entire saga I never heard from anyone at KA words such as “our apologies”, or “we are sorry”, or “can we be of any assistance to you”, which, just as the words “please” or “thank you”, seem to be in short supply in the Kenyan English dictionary – just as the simple, congenial, African smile doesn’t seem to go well with the faces of staff in charge of whatever thing in Kenya Yetu, not even with the faces of KA’s flight assistants, particularly if they are facing other Africans, sorry to say…

And to cap it all up, when I arrived in CT, good old lady Burberry’s didn’t show up in the carousel… But by then I was so exhausted that I didn’t even have enough physical or emotional energy left in me to despair. So, I just filled in the missing-luggage forms that were promptly availed to me and other passengers in a similar predicament by the SA customer office and went home with only on thing in mind: get some good old sleep! Which I couldn’t, because it was ‘Jool’s Day’ – the Stellenbosh University’s students Carnaval, whose main parade happens exactly along my street…

Anyway, about three to four hours later, I received a call from SA saying that my old lady had just arrived from where she had been left behind in Jo’burg for whatever reason and a courier would be sent straight away to deliver it to me. And so it was. In the brief chat we had, I mentioned just how happy I was to be reunited with her given all that we had been through in Kenya which had forced me to have her all wrapped up, to which the courier, a white Afrikaans guy, said: “you know, you should always do that when you travel to African countries, because black people, sorry to say but that’s what happens, like to cut and scratch the luggage and steal the contents!”… I said nothing back, but thought to myself, “if only all those KA and Mombasa airport’s staff realised how many people gave their lives not to ever hear anything like that again in our lifetimes”!

Yet, they call themselves “the pride of Africa” and sport a slogan according to which “with KA African pride is flying high”!
Is it?!

As a proud African, I was made by KA not to be proud of such ‘African Airline’…

Sorry to say!

KENYA YETU: HAKUNA MATATA? (I)

Ha’ uma cancao Swahili que e’ uma especie de hino do visitante do Kenya.
Ela comeca com #Jambo, jambo bwana, habari gani? Mzuri sana# (Ola’, ola’ senhor/a, como esta’? Seja bemvindo/a ao nosso Kenya) e termina com #Kenya yetu hakuna matata# (No nosso Kenya, nenhum problema) – note-se que nXi Yetu (nossa terra) tem exactamente o mesmo significado em kiMbundo e em kiSwahili.
E ja’ agora: repararam na imagem do Che a encimar a vela daquela canoa? A imagem dele e’ talvez a mais popular por aqui, depois da de Obama…


Mwana Yetu! Hongera Barack Obama!!

Aconchego Kenya Style

Indian Ocean Seafood Platter from the Jahazi Grill…

…Absolutely Food for Pleasure!

My Journey Through African Heritage, de Alan Donovan: eis um daqueles livros que sou (fui) capaz de comprar apenas pela capa. Ja’ o tinha visto publicitado algures aqui ha’ uns tempos, de modo que entre encontra-lo a venda na gift shop do hotel e compra-lo, embora tenha envolvido alguma ponderacao e discussao, nao foi um passo muito largo. O livro e’ totalmente feito a mao, pelo que e’ de edicao limitada. A capa e’ feita de pele verdadeira e os materias usados na sua ilustracao sao igualmente reais. Folheando pelo seu interior encontra-se uma rica coleccao de fotos eminentemente apelativas e estorias pessoais que deixam antever um relato unico da historia cultural, politica e social do Kenya ao longo de varias decadas. Mas, tendo embora sido capaz de o comprar apenas pela capa, nao sou capaz de o julgar apenas por essa razao, pelo que espero por uma oportunidade para o poder ler de facto e descobrir do que efectivamente trata essa jornada e, sobretudo, qual o conceito que o autor tem de ‘African Heritage’: pelo pouco que pude apreender do que dele folheei, nao me parece muito pacifico…

Eu e os meus ‘herois do mar’: Amani (Paz) – o puro homem da costa, nascido ali na vila da praia – e Patrick Lemachokoti – um ‘Masai’ com email address e mobile phone!
Estava eu entretida a a deixar-me levar saborosamente pelas ondas calidas da Praia Serena, quando o Amani se lancou ao mar na minha direccao, deu umas bracadas, mergulhou ao lado de mim e passado um bocado emergiu com essa concha ai, que me ofereceu dizendo que tinha acabado de a apanhar – bom, ele tambem podia te-la trazido de proposito num dos bolsos do calcao, mas o facto e’ que com aquilo acabou por obter algo de mim que nenhum dos outros vendedores de bens turisticos (passeios de barco, souvenirs de toda a especie, passeios de camelo, etc.) que por ali pululam tinha ainda conseguido: a minha atencao. Entretanto o Patrick aproximou-se e imediatamente nos embrulhamos numa animada conversa…

O Amani, tentando a todo o custo afastar o Patrick, tanto insistiu que acabou por me convencer a deixar-me levar por ele a um ‘aquario natural’ ali perto, onde, prometeu-me, poderia ver octopus, cavalos marinhos, caranguejos zebra e outros raros seres marinhos no seu habitat… e eu tinha que, absolutamente, ir naquele momento porque a mare’ estava propicia e sendo meia lua era o dia ideal, porque no dia seguinte seria lua cheia e a mare’ inchada cobriria completamente o aquario! Bom, la’ fui (ate’ porque estava a poucas horas da minha viagem de regresso e para mim nao haveria mais dia seguinte ali), mas acabei por ver apenas ovos e bebes de algumas das especies que ele tinha mencionado, o que nao tendo sido de todo decepcionante, era capaz de ser mais interessante a um/a estudioso/a de Biologia Marinha, ou de qualquer outra ciencia parecida. Para me consolar, ele ofereceu-me a concha mais pequena (essa vi-o apanhar…) que, disse-me, se chama ‘spoon shell’, porque era usada tradicionalmente como colher, antes de os europeus chegarem com os seus talheres.

Entretanto, foi-me dizendo que o Patrick nao era Masai coisa nenhuma, que apenas posava como tal para atrair os turistas: os verdadeiros Masai dizia-me ele, nao se encontram na costa, mas sim no hinterland, nomeadamente no chamado Masai Mara, situado a mais de 500 km dali. Este era talvez um Samburu (tribo de uma regiao mais proxima), que come peixe e eu nunca vi um verdadeiro Masai a comer peixe, acrescentou desdenhosamente…
Ja’ agora, esse e’ o recipiente, feito a partir de uma cabaca oblonga e finamente adornado com missangas e tiras de pele animal, onde os Masai misturam o leite de vaca e sangue de boi que – a semelhanca de algumas tribos pastorais do sul de Angola – constitui a sua base alimentar.

Mas o Amani falou-me tambem detalhada e sentidamente da crise que (tambem) assola o seu pais e particularmente os segmentos populacionais mais pobres, a que ele pertence – em troca das conchas e da visita guiada ao aquario natural que me tinha oferecido, pedia apenas que lhe trouxesse do hotel (onde a entrada aos desenrascas da praia como ele e o Patrick nao e’ permitida, excepto quando especialmente ‘convocados’ para improvisarem um mercado de artesanato para os turistas na relva do hotel, como aconteceu aos que se ve na foto que se segue) uns pacotes de cha preto, porque com a fome que passava, o cha preto pelo menos dava-lhe alguma forca para continuar o seu negocio de ensinar os segredos da sua costa natal aos visitantes... Trouxe-lhe todo o cha’ preto, mais todos os pacotinhos de acucar, de café, etc. que tinha no quarto e mais algum dinheiro.

Da crise (desemprego galopante, agravado pela seca que assola boa parte das regioes agricolas e pela retraccao do sector turistico, uma das principais fontes de rendimentos publicos e privados do pais, ainda nao completamente recuperado dos confrontos post-eleitorais do ano passado) ouvi falar por todos os Kenyanos com quem conversei, desde motoristas, taxistas, vendedores ambulantes, empregados de hotel, comerciantes mais ou menos estabelecidos, funcionarios publicos, etc. Uma afirmacao comum a todos eles e’ que ninguem parece acreditar que a parelha dirigente que forma o GURN resultante daquele conflito, o presidente e o seu premier, sejam capazes, ou estejam minimamente determinados a tomar as medidas necessarias para pelo menos mitigarem os seus efeitos nos grupos mais carenciados da populacao.

Portanto, no Kenya Yetu tem bwe’ de matata sim senhor/a!
Como em todo lado nos dias que correm…

Ha’ uma cancao Swahili que e’ uma especie de hino do visitante do Kenya.
Ela comeca com #Jambo, jambo bwana, habari gani? Mzuri sana# (Ola’, ola’ senhor/a, como esta’? Seja bemvindo/a ao nosso Kenya) e termina com #Kenya yetu hakuna matata# (No nosso Kenya, nenhum problema) – note-se que nXi Yetu (nossa terra) tem exactamente o mesmo significado em kiMbundo e em kiSwahili.
E ja’ agora: repararam na imagem do Che a encimar a vela daquela canoa? A imagem dele e’ talvez a mais popular por aqui, depois da de Obama…


Mwana Yetu! Hongera Barack Obama!!

Aconchego Kenya Style

Indian Ocean Seafood Platter from the Jahazi Grill…

…Absolutely Food for Pleasure!

My Journey Through African Heritage, de Alan Donovan: eis um daqueles livros que sou (fui) capaz de comprar apenas pela capa. Ja’ o tinha visto publicitado algures aqui ha’ uns tempos, de modo que entre encontra-lo a venda na gift shop do hotel e compra-lo, embora tenha envolvido alguma ponderacao e discussao, nao foi um passo muito largo. O livro e’ totalmente feito a mao, pelo que e’ de edicao limitada. A capa e’ feita de pele verdadeira e os materias usados na sua ilustracao sao igualmente reais. Folheando pelo seu interior encontra-se uma rica coleccao de fotos eminentemente apelativas e estorias pessoais que deixam antever um relato unico da historia cultural, politica e social do Kenya ao longo de varias decadas. Mas, tendo embora sido capaz de o comprar apenas pela capa, nao sou capaz de o julgar apenas por essa razao, pelo que espero por uma oportunidade para o poder ler de facto e descobrir do que efectivamente trata essa jornada e, sobretudo, qual o conceito que o autor tem de ‘African Heritage’: pelo pouco que pude apreender do que dele folheei, nao me parece muito pacifico…

Eu e os meus ‘herois do mar’: Amani (Paz) – o puro homem da costa, nascido ali na vila da praia – e Patrick Lemachokoti – um ‘Masai’ com email address e mobile phone!
Estava eu entretida a a deixar-me levar saborosamente pelas ondas calidas da Praia Serena, quando o Amani se lancou ao mar na minha direccao, deu umas bracadas, mergulhou ao lado de mim e passado um bocado emergiu com essa concha ai, que me ofereceu dizendo que tinha acabado de a apanhar – bom, ele tambem podia te-la trazido de proposito num dos bolsos do calcao, mas o facto e’ que com aquilo acabou por obter algo de mim que nenhum dos outros vendedores de bens turisticos (passeios de barco, souvenirs de toda a especie, passeios de camelo, etc.) que por ali pululam tinha ainda conseguido: a minha atencao. Entretanto o Patrick aproximou-se e imediatamente nos embrulhamos numa animada conversa…

O Amani, tentando a todo o custo afastar o Patrick, tanto insistiu que acabou por me convencer a deixar-me levar por ele a um ‘aquario natural’ ali perto, onde, prometeu-me, poderia ver octopus, cavalos marinhos, caranguejos zebra e outros raros seres marinhos no seu habitat… e eu tinha que, absolutamente, ir naquele momento porque a mare’ estava propicia e sendo meia lua era o dia ideal, porque no dia seguinte seria lua cheia e a mare’ inchada cobriria completamente o aquario! Bom, la’ fui (ate’ porque estava a poucas horas da minha viagem de regresso e para mim nao haveria mais dia seguinte ali), mas acabei por ver apenas ovos e bebes de algumas das especies que ele tinha mencionado, o que nao tendo sido de todo decepcionante, era capaz de ser mais interessante a um/a estudioso/a de Biologia Marinha, ou de qualquer outra ciencia parecida. Para me consolar, ele ofereceu-me a concha mais pequena (essa vi-o apanhar…) que, disse-me, se chama ‘spoon shell’, porque era usada tradicionalmente como colher, antes de os europeus chegarem com os seus talheres.

Entretanto, foi-me dizendo que o Patrick nao era Masai coisa nenhuma, que apenas posava como tal para atrair os turistas: os verdadeiros Masai dizia-me ele, nao se encontram na costa, mas sim no hinterland, nomeadamente no chamado Masai Mara, situado a mais de 500 km dali. Este era talvez um Samburu (tribo de uma regiao mais proxima), que come peixe e eu nunca vi um verdadeiro Masai a comer peixe, acrescentou desdenhosamente…
Ja’ agora, esse e’ o recipiente, feito a partir de uma cabaca oblonga e finamente adornado com missangas e tiras de pele animal, onde os Masai misturam o leite de vaca e sangue de boi que – a semelhanca de algumas tribos pastorais do sul de Angola – constitui a sua base alimentar.

Mas o Amani falou-me tambem detalhada e sentidamente da crise que (tambem) assola o seu pais e particularmente os segmentos populacionais mais pobres, a que ele pertence – em troca das conchas e da visita guiada ao aquario natural que me tinha oferecido, pedia apenas que lhe trouxesse do hotel (onde a entrada aos desenrascas da praia como ele e o Patrick nao e’ permitida, excepto quando especialmente ‘convocados’ para improvisarem um mercado de artesanato para os turistas na relva do hotel, como aconteceu aos que se ve na foto que se segue) uns pacotes de cha preto, porque com a fome que passava, o cha preto pelo menos dava-lhe alguma forca para continuar o seu negocio de ensinar os segredos da sua costa natal aos visitantes... Trouxe-lhe todo o cha’ preto, mais todos os pacotinhos de acucar, de café, etc. que tinha no quarto e mais algum dinheiro.

Da crise (desemprego galopante, agravado pela seca que assola boa parte das regioes agricolas e pela retraccao do sector turistico, uma das principais fontes de rendimentos publicos e privados do pais, ainda nao completamente recuperado dos confrontos post-eleitorais do ano passado) ouvi falar por todos os Kenyanos com quem conversei, desde motoristas, taxistas, vendedores ambulantes, empregados de hotel, comerciantes mais ou menos estabelecidos, funcionarios publicos, etc. Uma afirmacao comum a todos eles e’ que ninguem parece acreditar que a parelha dirigente que forma o GURN resultante daquele conflito, o presidente e o seu premier, sejam capazes, ou estejam minimamente determinados a tomar as medidas necessarias para pelo menos mitigarem os seus efeitos nos grupos mais carenciados da populacao.

Portanto, no Kenya Yetu tem bwe’ de matata sim senhor/a!
Como em todo lado nos dias que correm…

MOMBASA: III. FORTE JESUS

Construido pelos Portugueses (1593)

Capturado por Arabes Oman (1698)

Transformado em Prisao Governamental (1895)

Declarado Monumento Nacional (1958)

Museu Criado e Aberto ao Publico (1960)

Entrada Principal

{Escritos em Portugues arcaico}

Ancoras de navios portugueses ancoradas aos muros do forte

Entrada maritima adjacente ao forte

Testemunho do controlo do forte pelos britanicos (1895)

Construido pelos Portugueses (1593)

Capturado por Arabes Oman (1698)

Transformado em Prisao Governamental (1895)

Declarado Monumento Nacional (1958)

Museu Criado e Aberto ao Publico (1960)

Entrada Principal

{Escritos em Portugues arcaico}

Ancoras de navios portugueses ancoradas aos muros do forte

Entrada maritima adjacente ao forte

Testemunho do controlo do forte pelos britanicos (1895)