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- Keeping the Dream Alive - Africa Rocks!
- Author:Laurie Lewin
If you have ever been to Africa you know it gets its hooks into you ¡the sounds, the smells, the huge skies, the hustle and the bustle, the laughter, the singing oh yes the singing, the drumming, the sunsets ¡¡fill in your own list ¡you know what I am saying. The hooks stay and you know that one day you will be back!
For me it was circa 1984 with a party of 30 10-11 year olds, 5 teachers and 5 drivers on safari in Kenya. What a great time. Some things you do that stay as ever treasured memories ¡I know this is true for all who went on this trip.
¡®Remember that the big game do not worry about the sound of the vehicle engine, but if you speak, the sound of the human voice drives them away instantly!¡¯ was the stern warning from our safari minibus driver. We gently skidded around the next bend in the bush track and almost collided with a huge lioness with 6 cubs tumbling and running along behind her. ¡®Wow! A lion! I shouted in excitement. The driver just grinned knowingly, the lioness and cubs disappeared and the kids in the back glared at me.
We enjoyed 14 days and nights in Nairobi, Nakuru and the Masai Mara. ¡®Please be careful to put your shoes inside the tent otherwise the apes will steal them during the night!¡¯ ¡® We will shortly be going on our morning jog and the drivers have gone on ahead to check there are no lions currently on the track!¡¯ These were the typical morning briefing messages for the excited children. Evenings were full of laughter and entertainment. Strumming guitars and singing songs and listening to the beautiful deep rich voices of our bus drivers joining in. How do they get those harmonies? ¡Must be in their genes!
There was something shifting in my head during this trip something stirring inside me musically and rhythmically which I couldn¡¯t explain at the time other than as a total fascination for all that we saw and experienced. On return home these feelings did not subside and I found myself in spare moments scratching out some basic ideas for some African influenced songs.
I did return. But not in the way expected. Some years later as an educational consultant I was in Nigeria visiting schools. The African magic still hit me on arrival but this time accompanied by the sight of ghetto town poverty, street fires and violence and some rioting. I managed the work OK, but we were shocked when some of the people with whom we were working were kidnapped and held to ransom for a while. Next to where we stayed was an oil refinery and one night 500 people died in a fire caused by people desperately cutting into the fuel lines to get petrol which was being rationed by the government. I do not think this even made the world news although the kidnap of an expatriate mentioned above did feature on BBC world news. Again I found myself moved to writing some new song lyrics and tunes.
Next stop Gabon where they spoke to us in French and we were told this is the land of ¡®plenty yenzi (elephants)¡¯. Two weeks later and I was still waiting to see my first yenzi and I wrote a silly song called ¡®Ou Sont Les Elefants?¡¯ So many other experiences that evoked song writing/lyric writing inspiration ¨C like the evening sitting by the river watching the sun go down and the canoes going by wending homeward with the crews chanting and singing rhythmically in time with their paddling. I recall this scene inducing a feeling of peaceful loneliness that inspired me to write the song ¡®Far From My Home¡¯