To listen to audio on Rock Paper Scissors you'll need to Get the Flash Player

Sample Track 1:
"Robert Plant & Justin Adams - Win My Train Fare Back Home" from Festival in the Desert
Sample Track 2:
"Takamba Super Onze - Super 11" from Festival in the Desert
Sample Track 3:
"Ali Farka Toure - Karaw" from Festival in the Desert
Sample Track 4:
"Oumou Sangare - Wayena" from Festival in the Desert
Buy Recording:
Festival in the Desert
Buy mp3's:
click here
Layer 2
Festival dispatch 1 (en route)

Click Here to go back.
Afropop.org, Festival dispatch 1 (en route) >>

Festival of Desert report.. enroute in Timbuktu

Greetings from Timbktu...enroute to Festival of the Desert in Essakane. We are staying in Hotel Hendrina Khan, just recently opened and part of the signifigant building activity here since our last visit on the Mali Magic Tour of 2000. The harmattan winds have kicked up a yellowish dust but the air still feels clean and refreshing. The mix of Touareg

and Songhrai and Peul people here is beautiful. Glad to see most people are still wearing traditional dress. Powder blue is the cool desert color of choice. We visited with Markus James and Timbuktubab, rehearsing for their Festival performance and recording new songs. Solo Sidibe on kamele ngoni, Hamma on calabash and Hassi on njarka, one string fiddle, and Markus James on guitar and vocals. They were recording the sound of women pounding millet and playing along with that for the rhythm. Cool. They also played Banning and me a new recording featuring the sound of the Sahara wind playing Solo's kamele ngoni. Very cool. Hamma and Hassi are singing more with Markus these days and the ensemmble is excited about their Festival in the Desert performance Tuesday night. For our Saturday night in Timbuktu, we went to a Ramata Diakite concert. She is one of Mali's most popular Wassoulou singers. What a scene ! Everyone dressed in their finest. The band was tight, feaaturing a kamele ngoni player and a guitarist. Ramata is a charismatic performer. The MC stopped the action after every song to announce local dignitaries in the crowd and do a raffle. Not the best for building concert energy and we were exhausted after three days travel to get to Timbuktu so we called it quits early. On to Essakane tomorrow to set up camp for the Festival. Don't know about Internet connections from the desert but stay tuned. Meanwhile, I'm thrilled to be able to communicate with the Afropop community from Timbuktu ! Sean Barlow  01/04/03 >> go there
Click Here to go back.