The problem with being the only person who doesn’t speak Portuguese and look African at a music concert

There’s a small group of young ex-pats in their 20s here, mostly missionaries or in foreign aid and distributing food and supplies. I’ve been hanging out with them a fair bit over the last week, lots of good fun. One of them who works here to spread the word about AIDS organized a 8-hour concert (!) filled with local acts where a competition to write a short story about someone with AIDS would be launched. I thought I’d go along to support her, as well as check out the local talent (musical talent, not that kind of talent!).

It was not quite as I expected. There were about 200 young people there, gathered in a field with long grass and a small-ish stage. We got there well after it started; but soon after we did, the generator ran out of fuel, and they had to resort to using the megaphone as the microphone.


(one of the local acts, a Mozambican hip-hop band, accompanied by a 1980s CASIO keyboard and a backing track)

The MC (pictured on left – who I think was drunk – and he wasn’t alone) began to get nervous, with the crowd growing restless. A stand up comic got up for 2 minutes and tried to entertain the crowd, then some guy with a guitar (pictured on right) sung a mellow anthem. The crowd then started shouting something.



Then the MC turned his attention to me.

He came up and put his arm around me and said something in Portuguese about us having a Japanese guest (I think me holding my digital camera – and being Asian – didn’t help). The crowd then started cheering. During the next song, he began to ask me questions in broken English. The conversation went something like this …

Him: Do you like African music?
Me: Ummm … yes. I like African music.
Him: This is Africa, boss.
Me: (wondering where this was going) Yes. This is Africa.
Him: (pointing at the guitarist singing) He is so good, but we can’t cut a disc.
Me: Yes, he is good. (I was lying, he was okay. I reckon I could do love songs better. Assuming he was singing love songs.)
Him: We need to cut disc!
Me: You mean, make recording?
Him: Yes, but too expensive.
Me: Really – how much?

The MC then stopped the guitarist and got the crowd’s attention. I don’t exactly know what they said, but afterwards, the MC said to me over the megaphone:

Him: Do you like African music?

Someone came up to me with another megaphone and got me to speak into it. Everyone was watching (I took this photo of everyone staring at me … again)



Me: Ummm … yes!
Him: All we need is sixty thousand dollars.
Me: There must be some misunderstanding. I am not a finance person. I’m a tourist!
Him: Don’t worry, be happy (followed by something in Portuguese).
Crowd: (more noises and shouting)
Me: (awkward silence and confusion)

I’m not quite sure what happened next, but the power came back on and the band that was singing before the power went off began to sing hip-hop music again on the stage. During this time, random people came up to me and said either “This is Africa” or “Do you like African music?”.

The MC then came up to me (without the microphone thankfully) and offered me a strange pink drink (Mozambique’s Bacardi Breezer equivalents?) which I politely refused. Then these four young women walked up to me and started dancing very close, with their male friend asking me “You like dance?”, amongst other questions and statements in broken English about Lichinga, Niassa and women.

I’m not quite sure what he was getting at, but my lift home arrived then (and not a moment too soon!). My ears were hurting anyway. And I was confused. Very confused.

The perils of not speaking the language. And looking different! Some of those Africans are great singers though.

Blessings
John