Weddings and Chipangali

Right, so another Friday. I can't believe how fast some of these weeks go. Sometimes the days just drag on, but suddenly it is Friday and the weekend. It's like I get time in blobs. Anyway, I promised I would tell you about the wedding expo and Chipangali and the visits to the schools.

The wedding expo was on Sunday and I went there because of Anette, who is a very music-business-experienced woman from London and who will be helping the Academy with the vocal training and the project with the schools for the festival, but we'll come to that later. Anyway, we were to play for about half an hour and then three sisters who go to the Academy where to play for another half hour. That was the rough plan. So we got to the castle, Nesbitt Castle, and it was beautiful. Apparently it was built by a Scottish man who was mayor of Bulawayo for a while, and who wanted to have a castle like his ancestors. His son inherited it and let it fall apart and then the people who own it now bought it and restored it beautifully, with antique furniture and such. So we played in a lounge with microphones, so that we were heard everywhere on the front lawn, where there were tents with wedding dresses, cakes, table settings, drinks etc. Afterwards (it was sweltering hot as usual) we walked around the area, saw models walk on the red carpet and drank litchi juice.

On Sunday afternoon we where supposed to go to Bambata in Matopos, a National Park, but John was too tired so Maria, Dan and I went to Chipangali instead, which was perfect! Chipangali  is a ... esh, just click the link and I don't have to explain. It was lovely! Maria and I walked around looking at the monkeys, bucks, peacocks, crocs, leopard, hyenas, snakes, birds and lions. And when we where there they fed the hyenas, leopards and lions. It was really interesting. I mean, obviously the smell of the meat was awful, but watching them eat it - it went so fast! There were actually quite a lot of lions there, and one cub, who was so sweet! As we watched Simba and his wife Holly were given two pieces of meat, but Simba was greedy and wanted to have both for himself. So the workers had to try to make him let her have her pieces being on the other side of the net. Well thank goodness for that net, because they didn't make him happy, so he roared and stood up on his hind legs, trying to reach the workers. He was huge! I have never been so close to a lion on it's hind legs, but he really was a bit terrifying. Maria couldn't stand the snakes, and I can see why. Among them was a big python and two black mambas.

About the schools, it is a project for the music festival that we will be having at the end of May. The aim is to have about 300 singing seven pieces which a man in England has written. So Anette, Adri (also a new violin/piano teacher from South Africa) and I go out to six schools and try to teach the choirs the songs. Some of them are out in the suburbs, the poorer parts, and some are in the center of town. But all the kids are soooo cute, I could eat them. And they are so musical, they harmonize naturally and have such good rhythm. I can't help comparing to kids in Sweden the same age, and there are big differences. The children here seem to be born with rhythm in there blood.

Now I should be going home, plus my elbow is burning. So, look at the tumblr photos that will be coming up and I'll show signs of life here next week.

(Btw, sjukt kul att vi fått en miniprinsessa Sverige. Go Estelle!)