The Bush, the Bush, The Bush is on Fire!

Music has become more and more a part of my life since my musical awakening and going to music concerts is something I have missed out on. So, when there is a music festival in the tiny country of Swaziland right next door I had to go.

The Bush Fire Festival stretches for three days, starting on Friday and finishing on Sunday it was a smashing of cultures that was very welcome. We got from Maputo to the festival ground relatively simply and even saw an elephant as the bus passed through a national park.

Friday night was such a contrast to normal life, Swaziland is cold, so we were all bundled up in sweaters and woolly hats sipping on mulled wine as the evening got started. It started of slow and built up through various rock acts into some DJs and electro music. A South African duo called Goldfish caught my attention as it did the rest of the crowd.

It was a great evening jumping round dancing to good music. There were about 14 volunteers there, and even Z made it down from Zimbabwe to meet up with us which was great. As we danced and sipped our mulled wine, we could see our breaths, you would have never thought we were in Africa at that moment, it was also nice to have exposure to a type of music we rarely hear in Moz, the night we on until the wee hours before we retired to our tents.

The Next day was a beautiful sunny day which did not help the hangover I was sporting as I awoke in the rapidly warming tent. But a few smoothies and an egg sandwich helped me along and I was out back on the grass lounging around listening to the music again.

During the day we just were lazy and lay in the sun, or sat and had a beer. The music varied from traditional African, through to modern rock, spoken word and some Portuguese from Mozambique. It was a nice atmosphere. The food on over was spectacular, so many culture choices from German, to Indian, to local food it was hard not to just spend the entire time stuffing your face. Night came and the cold returned, but the music picked up to keep you moving and we spent the night like the one before dancing until late before retiring into your sleeping bag.

Sunday was a very chilled day with the music winding down the festival down. More sleeping on the grassed as the music flowed. A few of us got our faces painted and even if I do say so I we looked damn good, I was a rabbit. Habib Koité a Malian musician who I like played and it was great, the best part of the festival for me. Most people left today but Kelly, Aubrey and I stayed and had an early night.

We got back to Maputo without much trouble and even snagged a lift in the US Embassy staff cars which was handy. We even found out that we made it into the paper, a traffic group photo from the first night. Yea we do rock.