arnonmusic.com Blog

it all started with overhearing something at the bar.  It was just after watching my team conclude yet another tense and disappointing draw. Chrissy went out to gaze at the turquoise ocean when she said she over-heard some Hebrew.  A lovely bunch of diving instructors. We got wasted and were lead to ‘Bru’s House’ for a jam.

we jamed for hours,  I was fueled by a long hiatus from giging for me and Bru kept on feeding me Vodka and Whiskey out of the bottle…whilst Orsula (his Dive centre manager) rolled some no tobacco ones…

it went down real well with the friends and familia that were there. They asked me to play a gig with them the next evening…actually the told me…

The gig at Mario’s water front bar went down a storm…Chrissy shone and we played with great drummer Jozef on drums, Voitek on bass, Bru and Cam played extra guitar and Zanzibarian Cash did additional vocals and taught me loads of Raggae .

Rafa got so wasted he chundered over the ledge into the ocean 5 meters below, Ohad played the Jaws Arp and overall xmas cheer was truely high.

my favourite jam was when we molded ’sounds of silence’ with ‘revolution’ by T.Chapman and ‘the air at night’ by phill colins and then also ‘Sweet Dreams’ by Euritmics and ‘Living on a prayer’ in one SONG!

www.facebook.com/musicboyzszanibar/ – Ursula should upload some pics in a few days.

we concluded festivities in the early hours of the morning. Bru kindly invited Chrissy and I out of the guest house and into his own…i’m on his floor right now. Bru owns one of the diving centres here and is taking us diving for free cause he was so chuffed with us…yei.

the house is like a studio with everything set up and the music and backgammon flow like wine…& did i even mention the beach?!

good days in Zanzibar

Tanzania’s Dar es Salaam reminded me of older (& quieter) Tel-Aviv architecture & was by far the nicer of the East African big-wig cities.

Zanzibar so far is over priced but priceless.

We now head for the beaches.

I’m waiting and making notes in the stonetown market whilst locals pile onto the ‘durkah-durkahs’…oh sorry ‘dala-dalas’ that will take us up north. They occasionally stop their bustle to peek at my notes. Around me are man drawn carriages laden with white sacks of potatoes, sugar, yams & maize flower; sizeable Woman in full burkahs with hennas and high pitched voices. Smells of freshly caught bait-fish drying in the simmering sunshine mixing with the smell of ground spices. The noises of choking engines & revving trucks…

TRAVEL

merry xmas

we managed the 34hr trip from lake Victoria (west kenyan border) to Lamu (east Kenyan border) braved other peoples sweat & a man trying to convince me to sell his precious Tanzanian stones abroad; & the bumpiest drive to date. “corruption, corruption” the Kenyans croaked every time a pot-hole put us in the ceiling. A true point but Kenyans, unlike their neighbours to the south are still very, very tribal & identify themselves by tribe 1st & country later. A fact which I believe is very telling.

Lamu, on the northern border near Somalia, is a poor man’s Zanzibar and the sands around it are the play ground of the uber rich (price Albert of Monaco for one). The simple beauty of the place & the bounty of its waters (we caught 45 fish in less than 2 hours)

ooh fishy fishy

 won us over. A thousand donkeys roam the streets and we had a wonderful dinner at crazy hippie Ali’s house…

lobster dinner at hippy ali's...thanks bob

hippie ali plays with family

In Malindi we stayed cheap (in a fan-less whore house) and journeyed back in time.

We saw the tied London derby (Chelsea v West-ham) in a huge old cinema with its own school of bats on the ceiling…had nice piza. The whole thing reminded me of ‘Alex hole ahava’ – an old Israeli classic set in the early sixties.

The next day we met a lovely Italian air crew and surfer dude…top people (Italians have made this part of the world their homes and retreats every since Italian colonialism centuries ago…hey Mussolini even based his ‘banana a day’ scheme on food grown in these regions) We bought nic-nacs from merchants who waded the shallows from the coast. We had lobster lunch on a picture perfect atoll on the Indian ocean and more than once complained about how hard life can be…

g'us a kiss luv!

The bus was a rickety thing but was ultimately nothing compared to the MATATU (a small Toyota Hiace) we took from Homa Bay the next morning.

 somehow they consider it fit for 14ppl – that’s already ridiculous…but we got 24 ppl into ours…

and the girl next to me had a bucket of fish (puke sound effect)…

the nun next to her a bucket of clotting milk… (puke sound effect)

add the intense B/O of no soap…well ever, simmer in 40 degrees for 2 hours and there you go…though really it was an experience and strangely enjoyable…

anyway we got to Rongo and despite the heat and the lack of electricity or any mod-con it was and is lovely!

Ben – our man,  suffered hard in the last bout of post-election violence and lost 300 chooks and they had to close down the orphanage but the place is still absolutely lovely.

After a brief tour we got hands-on experience with the sugar harvest and refining! old Indian machinery and good ol’ elbow grease followed by a hot hot heat melt down into pure brown sugar lumps…

one lump or 2?

freshly chopped cane less the greenery

 we were fed the local staple – UGALI – a mix of maize and millet…tasted lke Kreplach if you know it…yum

here's mama, a supreme cook, drying the maize before grounding it

 the next morning after heavy rain and a full-on Kenyan music, 3 hour alarm, we got down to hard-core permaculture – companion planting banana with the cabbage – the Banana gives the cabbage much needed Nitrogen….nice and sustainable – the diggin was hard tho..

then we helped pile up recently dired bricks from the local soil – we are arranging them into a furnace like arrangement which we will burn tmr…I was happy to recieve many compliments from the Africans for my hard work…busted my hands beyond recognition tho (9 blisteres and cuts but boo fukin hoo, yea?!)

later that day (yesterday…hmm) Chrissy and I built our 1st worm farm!!! yippie the empire starts here!! Chrissy designed and Ben and I used the panga ( a chinese built machetee to cut the wood – Gum tree would you believe it!)

ahhh after a long day at the farm we slept good… but have a look at Hunington being washed…how cute!

today we are in town and enjoying electricity and internet…though the album deign is not finished yet it will be awesome when it is done. for now we have decided to help ben and start a web-page…we hope it will help raise awerness for the project!

tune in again soon ya’hear (there are 2 new songs i hope to upload as soon as I have electricity again

last but not least HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!! we love you and miss you, youre the best dad ever.

Arnon

its 8am but it might as well be 4.30
Nairobi (once known as Nairobberi is now safe and fun and should only have that name as to confirm Chrissy’s shopping spree) was inviting and friendly. but the akamba bus scheduled for 2130 didn’t move until 2300 loaded with everything you could imagine.

The roads were non existent…when does a road composed solely of pot-holes cease to be a road?

we just disembarked in Homa bay where the dust fills the air from the road non stop…

we are waiting for Ben. we are going to volunteer on his organic farm for the next week in the real African country side…
more updates soon

After leaving the wonderfully green Uganda we headed back to Kenya and the Lions.

I cannot streess enough how much TV does not do justice with some of the animals…in particular the lion and Rhino…they are huge and hugely impressive…

a wee litle kitty

We had high tea and Elsamere the home of the famous lion Elsa and here owner Joy something…:-) which took in the lion as a cub and had her as a ‘pet’ until her death

high tea at elsamere...oh you must try the quiche dont you know

We headed down to lake Nakuru, homre of the greater Flamingo…this bird is seriously strange, with a specialised whale like beak (or bill) for molasses and a head that is seriously far away from its body…poor thing

Flamingos at dawn

also home of the white rhino (there is also the black Rhino but white is just a mistake from translation from dutch (it should be wide…any way here it is)

and a few other residents of note

we also did a horse and boat safari where we got redicoulously close to fighting Hippo’s!

at night we got high on chat…a chewy bitter herb and went to the meanest grimmiest street party ever!

awesome!

A

After the Gorillas we chilled for abit on this gem called lake Bunyonyi (Chuchil called Uganda the pearl of Africa)

We visited a local church where the locals sang with pitch perfect voices (pentatonic tho) and went to an orphanage where all the children are there because their parents died from HIV Aides, we sang and danced with the lovely children. we gave them pens, I learnt new beats on the djembe and we gave direct to the orphanage without any middle men

I showed the locals how its done

but chrissy really showed them how to hardcore!

oh the equator…
where we way less apparently… how nice
where there is a time when a man can cast no shade…how useful
where it is fucking hot and there isn’t even a fuckin magnet to buy…(what a pussy)
we did get this photo out of it though

you say south, I say north...lets call the whole thing...the equator

oh Jinja…the source of the mighty Nile…seriously gorgeous.

we were sucked in by the huge rapids and got swirled and twirled in the pull and held underwater with very little control over the whole thing…chrissy and one stage was held under for 7 seconds…which i can tell you feels like a million years…\

I got stuck under the boat a few times but overall we surfed the rapids, conquered the waterfalls and subdued the mighty Nile with bravado and style (if i may say so myself) – video passages on here soon

We were traversing the depth of the impenetrable jungle (yes that is its real name) in the Bwindi national park in south west Uganda (on the border of Uganda/Ruwanda/Congo). we were tracking one of only a few wild mountain gorilla families left in the wild.

luckily the eco-tourism program has allowed numbers of Gorilla to slowly recover. After about 1.30hrs on the track our 8 strong group with armed guard found the gorilla tracks. Unfortunately the headed straight up a ravine…nice.

with the track well and truly behind and below us we hacked and slashed our way upwards and upwards. Now i don’t know what your concept of Africa is but Uganda is GREEN

we encountered the biggest earth-worms I have ever seen and wild jungle elephant beds as well as less welcome red bull ants with pincers that stuck in and didn’t come back out.

with no real footing to mention we slipped and slid through the reeds and thick growth until we final saw them. a large gorilla family! big, hairy, fat and relaxed!

thanks to an innovative program the gorillas have become acclimatised to human presence (though a respectful distance was kept).
still the silver back immediately growled and made it clear to our guides who’s boss… Chrissy’s tri-pod scarred the shit out of the cute things but hopefully some nice pics came out…

Before

Uganda

we also saw these cows with the biggest horns EVER

HOly cow

After

on the way back the equitorial rain punished us ‘real bad’ but it added a sense of authenticity to the whole experience…

love

Arnon