Although the local Sudanese music is in many ways very different from Dutch music, I have discovered at least one similarity. Yesterday I sat in the car and the radio was providing nice background music while we drove to the other side of town. Suddenly my two fellow passengers jumped up and turned the volume of the radio up. It didn't take long before they both started singing like they had ended up in the finals of a singing contest. I really liked the sounds of the music, but I had no idea what the lyrics of the song were about. I guessed the song was about the love for his wife or something in that direction. But one of my colleagues translated the words to me, after the song had finished: "
Time flies by and life is too short. We are old before we know it." When she continued her translations I started smiling; this could have well been the text of a typical Dutch '
levenslied'! Some of the sentences were a true copy-paste from songs I have heard in Dutch. I guess this melancholic theme is a universal hit..
