The stars are different on the other side of the world
The stars are different on the other side of the world & although it's nice to see the big dipper overhead, I'm still dreaming of that southern cross. one late night in Johannesburg, we are dropped off with all our instruments outside of our gated hotel. Everything is gated in Joburg, a strange existence for any Canadian. Guard dogs take their position, every door locked, walls spiked & the locals share stories of car jackings & muggings. So when a car swerves up to us in the wee hours & three guys jump out yelling in our direction we guess we'll be bidding a sad farewell to the Gretsch White Falcon & my beat up old Martin. To be sure, these fellows inquire about our instruments, but their manner is friendly & I can't help noticing how sharp they all look: Tailor made suits, bow ties, bowler hats & a fat joint hanging out of the tall, lanky one's mouth. He excitedly tells us not to move a muscle, he'll be back in 30 seconds. True to his word, he comes running back with a huge double bass & begins slapping out standard jazz tunes in a halo cloud of reefer smoke. Instruments come out now and the midnight street jam session lasts until a security guard hollers at us from behind a set of bars. It's time to go back into our jail cell, but luckily you can see the southern cross from our hotel window.
South Africa was filled with these kind of magical moments & meetings. Our first night, after 24 hours in transit, we are taken to a little bar where Zimbabe artist Oliver Mtukudzi is performing. We are swept away in the haze of our jet lag. It's worth every heavy blink of the eye & I urge you to check out his music if you've never heard it. The next ten days we are hard at work playing bars, clubs & the Oppikoppi festival with a fine artist by the name of Ferryl Purkiss. I suggest you google his name along with Oliver's. The day after our first show, we spend five hours watching 'destroyed in seconds' on tv, but thankfully things pick up after this. There is a memorable afternoon at an animal park & the three hour drive to Oppikoppi gives us our first real glimpse of African life. A baboon scratches himself on the side of the road, a partridge happily runs out onto the road only to be flattened by the truck in front of us. Clusters of shanty towns sit in the middle of nowhere. And of course there is our first African sunset from on top of a steep hill, covered in a layer of red dust. We leave Johannesburg after a few days & Ferryl treats us to a wonderful guided tour of Cape Town, taking us in & out of neighborhoods, along the coast & halfway up Table mountain. After soundcheck our drummer friend Ross Campbell and his culinary queen Syliva invite us over for a home cooked meal in their charming apartment. Our last day in this country is spent wandering the streets of Soweto where Nelson Mandela & Desmond Tutu were neighbors. We eat our dinner in a tiny outdoor shack where the cow is being slaughtered behind the giant grills & the slabs of meat are cooked & distributed to hungry customers at the end of a long work day. Three colorfully dressed woman chop piles of vegetables at an outdoor table & I, the vegetarian, feast on this & the corn porridge while a man proposes to me in Zulu.
Since April of this year I have sung 'Victoria Day' to the prairie sky, chased tornado's in Texas, shot an old tv set with a WW1 rifle on the top of the world highway in Dawson city, where the sun never sleeps. I have scaled steep old European staircases in my heels, carrying giant road cases as my vintage dress rips at the seams & I have rested my tired feet in a Turkish bath in Budapest. After South Africa, Luke & I got on a plane to Kampala, Uganda where we drove 400 km North East to the tiny village where our sponser child Emesu Saul lives with his family. There are lots of stories to tell of my travels this year. I will be posting more journals & photos of my second route 66 trip & my Uganda adventures. For now I'm going to enjoy some much needed time at home. This road is a long one. I'll see you along the way.
tea & scones in Oxford
guns & whiskey in the Yukon
www.flickr.com/photos/michael_edwards/
Brighton Pier
Luke backstage in Paris
ah, the glamour
