The
hills are alive with the sound of music!
For
you avid music and/or movie fans, you will recognise this from The
Sound of Music. I think this
phrase is very fitting for the hills of Rwanda, especially around
this time of year.
The hundred days of memorial have just ended and from that sombre
period, we move on to the brighter side of life in Kigali. I don't
believe there is a single country in Africa that does not appreciate
the sound of music. Rwanda is no different.
I just came from the Kigali Up Music Festival, an annual festival
held in Amahoro Stadium. It lasted the entire weekend and featured
artists from all over East Africa and a few from the USA all with
different genres of music ranging from Jazz to Reggae. I have to
admit, reggae fan I am not, but it was really good. Who knows, I
might change my mind about it after all.
There were two stages as well which confused me at first but made
sense after a while. While the first stage was setting up, you had
the choice to move to the second stage and listen to the amazing
music there. When the first stage was fully set up, you could move
there and enjoy more music. For the patient ones, you could wait for
the stage to be set up properly then enjoy the music, but as I like
to say, “To each, his own.”
The highlight of the festival for me was when about twenty Rwandan
women came on stage with their drums each dressed in the traditional
Rwandan garb. I've heard drums before and they were pretty fun to
listen to but this was simply awe-inspiring. I have to say, there is
nothing quite like the synchrony of a multitude of African drums
played in perfect rhythm. In that moment, I couldn't have been
prouder to be an African.
As I later found out though, women are not supposed to drum according
to African tradition. I wondered why not when the women I saw were so
good (power to the women!). Well, as it turns out, this is part of
Rwanda moving forward.
All that aside, I wasn't surprised to see that some of Kigali's
famous restaurants were not to be left behind. In the tents
surrounding the entrance to the stadium were several of these hotels
selling their food to the hungry crowd. I liked the diversity as well
since there was a choice between African dishes, snacks, American
fast food and Indian food – decisions, decisions...
For those of you interested in jewellery or perhaps some postcards,
curios or clothes, those were there too. And the best part was, as
always, the security. I will have to say this for criminals in
Rwanda, you had better be fully committed to your job since the
penalties for being caught are very high.
All in all, the festival was great fun and if you missed it, you can
catch it all again next year!
