Just by chance I am blogging about these 2 together.
Last summer I missed Bele Bele Drums when they came to the Village Center, but this year I decided I must go.
Fantastic all woman drumming group, some of the compositions where given to them as gifts or specially composed for them.
In Africa, one of the audience members said, no women ever play the drums.
But these women do-- "That's why we are here."
I liked best a Yoruba prayer which they sang.
They're set up as a non-profit and if you have the chance, go and listen. They have a website.
--
I read Ngugi Wa Thiong'o's Wizard of the Crow some years ago, and I love it.
I like it better than Chinua Echebe, whose writing I don't quite understand.
But I loved Alan Paton's Cry the Beloved Country.
Also, Death and the King's Horseman, ny Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, a really magnificent play.
I
also saw a production at Arena Stage and stood a couple of hours with
my back propped against a bookshelf to see Soyinka in person.
The only other person I've stood like this for is Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.
When I asked him for advice about how to deal with Burma, he said, "Be wise."
It
was interesting that a little VOA guy tried to run rings around the
Nobel Laureate, which seems to be a VOA or RFA thing, "friendly fire" as
my co-worker called it. The small doggies always go bonkers when they
see a big hillock or a fire hydrant.
Soyinka squashed the small man with one sentence, "I never said that."
-
Something is taken way from us by colonialism, or a lot is, but also something is given back.
Anyway, I had such a bad experience suffering from
job harassment from the probably junta-inclined Burmese boss at the
radio station on M St, I have vowed never to write in Burmese again, and
never even speak much of it. I'm a writer and an artist. It's my
choice what media and language I decide to use.
And that's my post for today.
kmk
6-21-2019
