A wonderful cultural journey through time
100 years Anniversary:
organisation god helps Uganda in Zizers, Switzerland
September 2016
On this festival we supported Uganda. We are there as
the African presenters. There were a lot of activities on this festival. Bookwriters were there to give speaches and other
organisations had their stands on the festival place.
We had the African
stand.
From 9 am. till 6 pm.
we offered every 45 minutes a workshop and presented a concert. Aaron and me
started the day with a show to announce the starting workshop.
After two
workshops, we got people lining up to take part in the next round. This kept
going on till the evening. The workshops and concerts had its own story to
tell.
In the afternoon we got half an hour brake and
we used that opportunity to watch around on the festival.
Every stand you go
had its own history to tell. You can see pictures and working tools of 100
years ago being used in Zizers / Chur. You can follow the production of the farmers
of the area, such as seeing the cornmill, cider press or snaps distillery. We
had possibility to try some of them by ourselves.
We visited also a
stand where they dressed you up to look like the people 100 years ago. A lot of
families dressed up like this with their children and took pictures in black
and white with that old type of camera. And the studio looked also like 100
years ago, with its chairs, cupboards and room items. This was really
fascinating. Suddenly as we were watching them, some of the workers there
started smiling at us, talking to eachother. We got closer and they said,
they want to show us a picture. We saw then old pictures of Africans who visited
the Swiss friends 100 years ago in this village. Such a surprise! We were the
only two Africans in that Moment on this stand. So we use that possibility to
play a bit a theatre. Aaron should dress like those Africans 100 years ago in
Zizers and I will come as a musician friend who visited him in that time. After
they dressed Aaron up and me standing next to him in African dresses, with a
talking drum under my armpit, waiting for taking picture, people started to
gather and watch us. I think it really looked to them like a cultural journey
through time.
After taking the
picture, a lot of people asked to take pictures with us. We nearly missed our
next round of giving workshop. Suddenly we saw the organiser walking towards
us: „ people are waiting for you!“ Aaron undressed fast and we quickly went to
our stand, 10 minutes late, but they were still waiting for us. The workshopo
went on successfull and we had a good show.
Finishing and to pack the drums was another
surprise. We found out, the Swiss working there, were all relatives. Since generations
they had contact and exchanges with African people. Everybody who helped us there, was telling us a story
about where they have been in Africa. Some where also in Ghana before and many of
them still live in African countries and just came for the festival.
The wonderful cultural
journey through time brings the motto : music is energy – energy gives
happyness.
