What the Sauti za Busara festival bar shelves might lack in diversity, the mix of people, performers. colours and flavours compensate. It almost sounds like such a cliche to be repeating the fact, that this is the core of Zanzibar. However, this variety, which is so unique to Zanzibar, is strongly reflected within the Sauti za Busara, the people and the performers.
In fact, this is one of the most interesting parts of this festival; People watching.
A huge sea cruise ship has plunged its anchor in the Stone Town bay, shining bright at night from what seems like a thousand tiny windows. From here groups of elderly wazungu, sensibly dressed with sunhats, some with supporting sticks, enter the festival from smaller boats taking them from the ship to the shore. Yesterday, an elderly couple walked up to me and a friend, asking about the state of Forodhani Gardens (wonder if anyone knows the answer to this), assuming we were 'some of these young students studying at the university.'
And there are many of them at the Sauti za Busara. And in the eyes of someone twice my age, we might at first sight appear to belong to this category of the young, western European volunteers or tourists, who are not only 10-15 years younger than us, but also people who seem to spend most days on the beach, and typically dress too minimalistacally in terms of cultural sensitivity.
An issue which seems completely irrelevant to this category, in spite the largest parts of the ordience are people from Stone Town, who dress more conservatively and according to Islamic and Swahili tradition.
It is quite interesting to see how this mix, nevertheless, is lived out in a confined space like the Old Fort.
Maybe it works because there also exists an interesting balance between the performers who range from i.e. Omega, a Uganda/American singing in Luganda and English (photo above); Sansa, a Ugandan ngoma (traditional folk music) troup, Tarbia - a local Zanzibar group, based in a madras a (an Islamic school) and who performs on a spiritual and religious base - to last night's politically engaged and loud, British performer, TY (photo below), who gave a whole other impression of hip hop, than I'd expected from reading about him in the programme.
Hip hop with soul and heart.
I stood next to a somewhat 9-year old girl, shouting out loud; 'Love you, TY!' In spite, the man was awesome, I left the confessions to the 9-year old. Man, this power, dressed up in a Zanzibar print one-size-fits-all shirt, did also reach me!
Sansa - the traditional folk music band from Uganda - I'd usually say that I have had my share of ngoma - but when a guy last night walked up to me in a mixture of joy and pride presenting himself with a big smile and a; 'Hi, I am Charles from Uganda. Did you see me perform?', I truly did regret that I hadn't.
These meetings and conversations are, so to speak, the stuff Sauti za Busara is made of - and what makes this so different to a music festival in Europe.
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