Our journey started from snow covered Northumbria, skidding down the narrow icy lanes towards the A1 and ended 3 days later (after various forms of public transport – car, plane, taxi, dalai, coach and three wheeler cycle!) in hot and humid Dodoma which is situated in central Tanzania. [click to continue...]

Israeli music, check blog here. Picture gallery here. ♥

“I am so sorry, but there is no room at this hotel” …. It is 4.00 am, we are weary travellers, arriving for our first ever visit to Israel, a little shocked at these immortal words, from a bygone age. Our forlorn faces suddenly revived and turned to smiles when our host then mentioned, “we do have some servant quarters available, around the back of the hotel.” Hey, if it’s good enough for Joseph and Mary ……… [click to continue...]

Photos………… Wedding band recording ……… Check out my Indian Instruments

From our 1960’s white Ambassador taxi we entered into a cacophony of noise as cars, large decorated trucks, vespa motorcycles and yellow auto-rickshaws jostled for position, incessantly honking their horns in ritual communication. Hurtling at sometimes breakneck speeds, we weaved in and out of traffic and stranded pedestrians who were trying, somewhat nonchalantly, to cross the ever bustling streets of this city. [click to continue...]

With the sound of beating drums and chanting voices all around, the small African compound had come to life, illuminated by the light of a new moon. As the heat of the day subsided, the cool breeze of the evening brought renewed energy into Mnase village life. Scraping, sliding sounds of dancing feet against the red ochre coloured earth floor, swished in time with the hourglass shaped percussive instruments, enticing everyone into the intoxicating rhythm. No one could keep still, even a feeding mother sitting cross-legged swayed in time, picking out vocal harmonies or answering sung phrases, seemingly oblivious to the clinging child at her breast.

As we sat entranced by the spontaneous nature of this musical explosion the day to day survival of these Tanzanian’s had been forgotten. Patiently waiting for the rains, their crops were slowly but surely withering under the brutal heat of an East African sun. Yet, there was hope in the air, and this evening it had come, as it often did, through the sound of the drum, coaxing us to dream of a new day. [click to continue...]

Looking out over the nearside aircraft wing, the first golden rays of daylight pierce the distant horizon, as the air steward announces in kiswahili of our impending landing in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. I have travelled with a team of 15 to help with a conference, musical concerts and takeing supplies to village schools. The tannoy system crackles into life again, “Karibu”, welcome to Kenya. [click to continue...]

Leaving Entebbe airport in Uganda behind us, the seemingly never-ending vastness of Lake Victoria below, our destination was a small African country, Rwanda. Tucked just south of Uganda, west of Tanzania, north of Burundi and east of Zaire, this beautiful green land of a thousand hills was the scene of a devastating genocide just six years ago. Between half a million to one million people were massacred and two million became refugees at a time when this country was considered one of the most Christian in Africa, 90% of the population called themselves either Roman Catholic or Protestant. [click to continue...]