Despite the vaguely Cary On humor of the previous entry (frankly, I think its a load of Toss!) there is a serious conversation going on there. Meanwhile the power went off here (as sometimes happens) and I walked to Tala to post five letters to the UK and Belgium, and to buy some food I needed (and some I did not). I got Skippy(sic) crunchy peanut butter, another cake mix, green banannas for cooking and a loaf of bread; came back and had peanutbutter and bananna sandwhiches, wonderful!.
On the way back from the market I had the usual barriage of greetings from the kids at Mother Theresa’s and then I heard it. Coming from a small shack containing just one little shop….
**Bert Kaempfert**’s Swingin’ Safari! Oh how I whistled!
Those of you who know me well will be aware that I believe human expectations have the power to make us very unhappy. A big part of what I do to keep happy out here is examine my expectations. I have spoken, back home, about learning djembe or local dance while out here. There might be some in other parts of Kenya but I ain’t seen nuffink like it yet in the environs of Tala. I’m not dissapointed, but it helped me identify an expectation of a sort of romantically musical continent. Most of what I have experienced of music in Kenya has been some sort of Gangsta Rap with music videos that include big miserable rappers complaining rythmically about something and little sexy girls shaking their asses in skimpy metalic hotpants in front of a camera man who seems to be wishing he was the height of a hobbit.
It all sounds rather American to me. Which is, of course, not **bad**, but clearly different from what I was secretly hoping for. Whereas the german Bert Kaempfert just resontated my “British bloke in africa” bone, and made me very very happy.
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