05 August 2008

Jebana

Usually when the ladies pounded the beans they would do it in this crazy African rhythm and I loved it. Then they would hand it over to me and expect me to just break out into a rhtyhm too. I'm not African so I don't have this amazing sense of rhythm instilled into me and it always took me a few minutes to catch the hang of it and come up with a beat.

What I really loved is that, while they would sit there and laugh at me making a fool of myself trying to get it together, once I finally got a beat going they couldn't ever replicate mine. I think it's a great example of how African and Western music are just so different.

So here I am making a pathetic attempt at pounding coffee beans in a cool rhythm.

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