Music in the forest;peace& love

This is a blog from waaaay back but its never too late to tell a decent story eih?
So come 8-11th July, I had the chance to attend the Rainforest World Music Festival in the rainforests of Sarawak. Picture this; 4 days of world music at the foot of a mountain and jungle with the sea on the other side of the landscape and if magical doesnt come to mind, you need help!
The stage was aptly set at the foot of the mountain surrounded by lushious green jungle....

World music takes some getting used to especially if most of what your used to is the bling bling matha what sounds and all other conventional types of rhymes and lyrics. It was a case of in your face drums, jingles, tamborines, ukaleles, lyrics from lands afar, artists telling stories of the lands they come from using authentic instruments e.t.c.
In the line up was Mongolia, Belize, Ivory Coast, Italy, Poland, Colombia to mention but a few. The atmosphere was one of peace and love, the dress code appeared to feature lots of happy pants(fisherman trousers), easy shirts, slippers, lots of easy going folks and lots of KLites who dropped their city acts, ties and power suits for a weekend of down to earth chill out.

The atmosphere was superb with the Ivory coast crew working the crowd into a frenzy with their thunderous african drums that speak volumes of our beautifuk continent at the slighest touch (Ok, so im afrocentric:) This picture should speak of the frenzy.....

Mad props to a Polish group (Shanon) who fused soft rock, jazz and celtic sounds to have all our hands in the air, heads bobbing and feet stomping.
The Italian group and their sing along tune ...Utsatsa utsatsa get 7 marks for their ability to teach us Italian in under 2 minutes. If there is a tune we still remember its the Utsatsa.
The Mongolian crew caught our attention with the high pitched sounds. I imagined a remix with any of the bollywood tunes and I see in an instant an Asian chart buster..shigishigi in da ho...(ok thats what we thought we heard them say)
Tuku Kame from Sarawak and some beautiful string work from an instrument that looks like some manner of huge mandolin; Petrona Martinez from Colombia @66years is still a very jiving song bird and Id have to say I was glad to learn a thing or 2 about the afro origins of Colombian culture.muy bien!
Plus it doesnt hurt when youre shacking up at the Holiday Inn,

and enjoying this sort of sunsets,

amdist this kind of a set up.
And lets not forget the after parties at the beach with the drum circles and the bonfires.
Skin on wood...NICE! Im talking drums man, Mother Earth's contribution to music!

BIG UP! to the organisers and if you can, make it to next years fete.

Kiswahili comes to town albeit on cracked heels

Thanks to the good folks at ellgy, learning Kiswahili just got easier. Here is a little find unearthed from a Malaysian daily...

A catch 22 in the case of the people vs the forest

One of the hottest topics in Kenya currently is the protection of the forests. Over the years, sneaky folks have crouched into our forests and made gazillions by selling out protions of the forests to unsuspecting wananchi(citizens). Being an agro-based economy, we are very passionate about our land and many a dispute has many a kenyan has been involved in a land dispute. Families are broken, murders too all in the name of a man protecting his soil so when the minister declares that all people living within the forest boundaries must go or be cleared out; you can only imagine the havoc this brings about.
He is right. It is his job to oversee the protection of forest reserves so when he brings the bulldosers to town and tears down the villages within the forest, he is within his rights.
The other side of the coin is the heart wreching, tear invoking stories of the families who have no where to go now. In some cases, they may know that this is protected land but still purchases but those are a handful.
The rest are just people who needed an option to establish a place to live.

I do not envy both parties. The question that will constatly come up is who should be priority here..should the clearing cotinue to preserve the life of the forest and its benefits, or should the people who live there continue to do so much to the detriment of the natural resource?
Ofcourse relocation is a probable suggestion but then again, we have yet to see a successful mission of this sorts....

G8, Live8

Im yet to be convinced about the objectives/results/mission of this whole make poverty go away hooha.
A group of economic fat cats a.k.a the G8 spend tonnes of tax payers monies to run a summit to discuss the plight of poor Jairo/Shah/Sega/Manuel e.t.c who live in untold poverty in whatever pocket of the world.
The summit is being held in some posh establishment with the delegates all well taken care of to a fault and as they chomp down their fillet o' whatever and swirl ther sauvignon(s), in the name of coming up with strategies to save the poor chaps, the poor of the globe languish further and further.
They G8 crew have probably never known a day without a meal,they always have a roof over their heads, a paid holiday for all the hardwork they have done throughout the year (including endless hours sitting and yawning in meetings), never went bare foot unless their medical consultant flown from China says its good for the chi!...arrm you get my point.
To support the cause further, apparently, some of the top seed in the music industry with bank accounts that you and I will probably never have are singing ther lungs out in the name of poverty. The are getting free publicity which means more people buying their tunes, expanding of the bank accounts and perhaps a few pennies put in the 'Make Poverty History' account....
SERIOUSLY FOLKS WHO ARE WE KIDDING??/!!

I would be highly suprised if the poor of the globe give 2 hoots about all this. In my opinion all this effort wont amount to much.

Off the top of my head, what this concerned parties and the other government of the world can do to actively contribute to eradication of poverty includes;
a)Give them an education,provide them accessible medical care
b) ensure citizens talents are not wasted by reducing the unemployment levels. they earn some, they live some, its one family out of the statistics
c) easen up the borders to maximise on global talent
d) step up the infrastructure to support development and local industry
e) protect the water catchment areas and other natural resources
f) let those egos go and stop colonising other countries (mentally/physically/ecomically)
g) Drop the warheads, shake hands amicably and sort out development issues within your own borders. Remember the more nukes are blown up, the more damage to the ozone, climate patterns are affected,agro-based economies are crippled, poverty is created...
h) Ease up trade concessions and fair trade policies
And I have barely scratched the surface..

But surely, poverty has been with us since time immemorial, the possible suggestions I have stated are no rocket science..how then is it that we need yet another summit ad global effort to figure this out...?

Arrrrmm, why aren't they holding the summit/concerts in areas where there is actual poverty? If the point was to highlight how much poverty we have in the world, why aren't the affected nations, not the host countries? How about if they held them in a 'poor hood' and employed the local chaps to help with the logistics...wouldnt that be a very direct contribution to the change of status of that population?Even if for the shortest time?

I rest my case....and remain highly unconvinced.
The ones who really know about poverty, should be the ones discussing it and coming up with the solutions, not the guys from the other side of the ridge while nestled in their 6ft mansions...Cannot lah!

Happy Canada Day!

To all those kool Canadians who I have had the honour to meet/live/work with over the years...
Happy Canada Day.....

Melhttp://melissa.nomadlife.org/, being the patriotic Canadian sent us this bit on good ol' maple country....
Thanks for the education Mel..now drop down and get your tuk (sp) on! and maple up your day :)


Did you know?
…that Canada is the second largest country in the world.
..that Canada’s national sport is lacrosse. No, not hockey but lacrosse J Although hockey is the national pastime!
...that there are SIX time zones in Canada…that there are two main languages are English and French. French is spoken by about 6 million people.…that Canada has the world's longest coastline. There are oceans on three sides - Pacific (west), Atlantic ( east), Arctic (north).…that Canada has the longest national highway in the world. The Trans-Canada Highway is 7,604 kilometres long stretching across Canada

A bit of history:
-The first people were the Aboriginal people.-Explorers and settlers from Western Europe arrived in the 1500s. -Canada was named by the French explorer Jacques Cartier (1535).-The name "Canada" comes from the Huron and Iroquois word "Kanata" meaning "village".-Canada became a country on July 1st, 1867.
Famous Canadians:

- Bryan Adams
- Alanis Morissette
- Jim Carrey
- Sum 41
- Joni Mitchell
- Wayne Gretzky
- Alexander Graham Bell