Abubilla Music

11.03.28-29 Singing Wells 4 Nairobi to Malindi

Written by Jimmy

We left the paradise of the Fairview Hotel on Monday morning for a very, very long drive to Malindi.   We then spent Tuesday recording 2 groups in a beautiful village, named Sita (means 6 in Swahili).   Please click here to go to the Singing Wells website to learn more about the music.  For the adventures of the Katebul-Abubilla gang, please continue below.  

Monday: 28 March: Our last blog reported on a wonderful morning at the Fairview, an afternoon at the Ketebul studios and an extraordinary evening at Skippers (click here).     Andy and I were up at 6 AM, leaving blogs, and were ready to go by 0830AM for the big day.    Ten quick  highlights of our Monday:

1. 9 means 12.  Every time.    We were ready to go at 0830.   We headed off at 1200.  In between were three and a half lost hours.  Don’t have any time where they went.   We waited around a lot.  Shook a lot of hands.  Said hi to folks.  Waited around.  Taped a sign up on the Abubilla Door.   Packed.   Hung out.   Smoked.  Talked.  Finally, by the time we had gotten our water, said goodbye, packed the rest, we actually started on the road to Mombasa at 1200.   Too bad we had a rather long drive ahead of us.
2. Every truck in the world is on the road between Nairobi to Mombassa: They say all the world’s large cranes are in Shanghai.  Well, it is also true that all the world’s trucks are on the road from Mombasa to Nairobi (and back again).  It is mostly a 2 lane road.   To announce you are close to a town, the road suddenly has massive bumps in it.  Axel braking bumps.  At that point you come to a crawl and pass thru a small village market, where you can buy anything as long as its a mango.   then you’re thru the town and going 120 kilometres/hr again.  And this is where the fun begins.  Most of the time, you are trying to pass the truck ahead of you OR staring at a truck from the other lane bearing down at you… seconds before a head on collision.    We saw 2 very near head on collisions and were staring at about 8 trucks coming at us full bore – Tabu screeched to a near halt to avoid a collision.  In England, we’re always shocked that many towns have lanes so small only one car can pass at a time.  In Kenya, the on-coming semi truck just assumes that the rest of the traffic will slow down or get out of the way to pass – simply no questions asked! 
3. Final numbers:  5 monkeys, 3 zebras, 2 near head on collisions, 742 ‘Market Towns’.   When not dodging trucks, we also saw 5 red-butted monkeys, 3 zebras playing on the side of the road and 2 near collisions.  We didn’t believe Willie when he said there would be monkeys.  But there were Monkeys.   5 of them over 500 kilometers.  But we saw wild-life.    And we saw lots of ‘market towns’ – some one is doing a very good job at Coca Cola – almost every kiosk is painted in red and white with a few logos.
4. It is all about goats and charcoal: A 2 lane highway.   Thru 500 kilometers of African plains, blue skies… When the bumps happen, you’re coming to a village and need to buy mangos.  But otherwise, you drive and see people walking up and down the road, riding bikes, catching matatus to other villages.  And on the road everywhere are bags that turn out to be charcoal.  In addition to their goats, charcoal is a major part of the economy and whole families will burn wood thru the week and then put out their bags for collection.
5. So the land is every colour of our villa…and a bit of black.  And the land is a stunning red.  Every the soil is turned, you see either red or terracotta.   Beautiful rich earth.  Unless they’ve been burning charchoal.  then it is very, very black.
6. 1 means 2.  Every time.  We drove 500 kilometers and reached Mombasa at 7PM.  Pitch black.  Traffic everywhere.  We were very, very tired.   We had the windows of the car open and it felt like we had been sky diving for 7 hours waiting for the parachute to open.   Now we arrive in the traffic and pitch dark of Mombassa.  Maddo told us it was only another hour to Malindi.  It was closer to two and half.  Same roads.  Same trucks.  But now pitch dark.
7. A blinker (turn indicator) says how big you are… but it is even more accurate to turn out the lights:  So we’ve now been going for awhile.  7 hours to Mombasa with 2.5 hours left to Malindi.  In the dark.  With trucks coming at you and folks all over the road.  Bikes everywhere.  No lights.   People everywhere. Mostly dark clothes.  One object was very lit.  it was a wheel chair, ridden bravely by an older man, in the middle of a road filled with trucks going 130 kil/hour.   Passing is more dangerous now, but happens more often because everyone is tired and wants to get where they’re going.  So as someone is coming at you the idea is to put your blinker on – this shows how wide you are (always a bit wider than the headlamps) and this helps the other guy coming at you not hit you.  It is even better to turn off your lights so the other guys lights can see the whole you.  We’re not kidding.
8. This is the most dangerous thing in the world.. We’re world travellers. But this got seriously scary.  Tabu was a Saint and got us there fine, but there were moments.   Lots of ‘close run things.’   It was very good to get to Malindi.  Very good indeed.
9. Hot ain’t hot, until hot is humid.  Oh, and there’s hot.  And then there’s humid hot.  And then there’s humid hot with no air conditioning.  There is no air conditioning at the Paradise hotel.    And you never get cool, or even not incredibly hot.  Ever.  From when we arrived at 10PM, to when we slept, to when we woke, to when we ate breafast, to when we returned from the village.
10. The Ketebul Gang is amazing.  And so the driving was a bit long and a bit scary.  And the arrival was a bit hot.  But even on Monday we knew the trip was going to be extraordinary.   The whole trip we listened to Ketebul’s CD’s.  At every stop, they laughed, they joked and never worried about distance, traffic , heat, etc… On arrival in Paradise, we dove into our Tuckers and prepared for the day ahead, joking about head on’s; oh, and the other car almost hit a monkey.  That would have resulted in only four monkeys between Nairobi and Mombasa.   Good think that didn’t happen!  Moreover, each member of Ketebul has full time pursuits elsewhere, from political cartoonist to rising musicians… this they do for love of the traditional and the desire to marry it to the modern.  That’s not a bad thing.   Especially if they don’t kill monkeys.

Tuesday, March 29th.   The Magic Begins

We left early and went to the village of Sita.  On the way we picked up Bado from his studio.  Bado was the fourth son of the village elder, Nyere Konde,  who ran his local group.  We filmed two full groups (Nyere Konde Musical Club and Zaire Ndindingwa) and then Winyo led the group in a song and Bado, Winyo and Yerere sang a song of Bado’s.   Overall we recorded about 9 songs in a village filled with 10 familes and probably 50 kids.  Very, very cool.     We have lots to report and will leave a detailed blog on Singing Wells, but in mean time, here’s the picture of the two groups:

Finally, Winyo was posing for potential album covers!  A couple quick pics:

We were in the village for about 4 hours and it was incredible.   It’s a battle now of batteries, e mail time, back up time and sleep, but we’ll post all the pics when we can…

Jimmy

(Malindi, Kenya)