Well what excitement! We discovered that the President of Burundi (His Excellency Pierre Nkurunziza) was going to visit Sandele Lodge – just up the road from where we are staying. We found some excuse to go round there and managed to catch all the action.

A lot of pomp and ceremony, drumming, dancing and excitement all round as he visited the eco-tourist site – this area is designated as protected from modern development.

There are a few more pictures on my FACEBOOK (click)

I’m not sure if I’ll get back to the internet before my brief return to the UK from Mar 4th – 25th but if not I’ll post again from there.

Hope this finds you all well – bye for now.

Another quick update. We’ve just returned yesterday from a four-day trip to Senegal sussing out another festival to see how they do things there and what we can learn from them.

The journey there was over quite rough terrain and untarmacced roads so very hot and dusty but great fun! We spent four nights at a friend’s compound in the outskirts of Abene, about half an hour from Kafountine.

The festival at Kafountine was really lively and we saw some good traditional African bands. I’m putting some photos up on my Facebook if there’s enough bandwidth.

We’re now starting to organise the festival at Kartong properly and have a meeting on Sunday with the members of the local Festival Committee and are starting to make contact with artists etc.

Last night we spent at Safari Gardens a small hotel with a hot shower (what a luxury!!!) though I don’t mind washing with a bucket of water from the well which is fine too.

So….. that’s it for now. I hope this uploads ok. Bye for now.

MORE PHOTOS

Hi guys – I’m in an internet cafe in Fajaro – a biggish town in the Gambia where we came to pick up a visa for a friend visiting the UK in March.

We’ve started preparations for the Kartong Festival which runs from the 26th to 29th March inclusive and will have music, drumming, dance, cultural activities, wrestling and more! We’ve been working with the local school to get the children involved and a UK musician will be working with a local teacher to write a song with the children to perform at the festival about Kartong. Other children who are not singing will make costumes for the performers to wear.

Everything here takes at least three times longer to achieve and you have to be very patient – it’s hot and a tremendous lack of resources but people are enthusiastic although there is also sometimes jealousy if people think some are benefiting and they aren’t! All par for the course and it will all smooth out in the end (hopefully!)

We are staying in a very lovely lodge with a friend and eating well. It’s wonderfully hot and sunny and we are quite near the beach though haven’t had time to go there really!

I’ll try and upload a photo of the local town.