Drama and music performances here in Kosti
don’t take place in fancy theatres or venues with spectacular lights and
costumes. The artists here act with minimum resources; in the sand, under the
open sky in the local communities. Besides the elderly women on plastic chairs,
the audience is seated in the sand and generally very eager to see and hear
everything. We were invited by one of the communities to visit them and watch a
local drama group perform. Because of the language barrier, it was a matter of
observing the body language of the players and the audience to understand the
storyline. It was truly entertaining to see the faces of the children, men and
women who seemed to change their facial expressions instantly. One of the plays was about street children and had an educational
awareness-raising undertone, which clearly had the intended affect on the
audience. The last play was a comedy about a man who claimed that someone had
stolen his chicken. Especially the children really enjoyed the funny story and
comic interaction of the players with the audience. After the short but powerful
45-minute performance, all people went back to their homes with a satisfied
feeling and smiles on their faces. It obviously doesn’t take much to provide an
entertaining evening here in Kosti!
Saturday, September 15, 2012
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Caught in the act
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Long time, no see!
It is always a pleasure to watch Sudanese people greeting each other. This special 'ritual' with the gestures and the words seems to be so deeply rooted that it looks like a natural automatism. As I stated before, Kosti is not a very large town and in many ways it feels like a small village where one of the main activities is to greet people on the street. Yesterday, I went to the small market in the centre of town (-where it all happens-) with a friend of mine. We first went to the fruit stall where, after having done the greeting ritual, I received the question where I had been all this time! The man behind the vegetables stall, which is situated right next to the fruit stall, intervened by telling me that they were worried that I had gone back to Holland. While they were expressing their worried and slightly blaming thoughts, I started counting the days I had not been to the market. Sometimes the Sudanese heat can give you a different perception of time, but I was sure that it had only been 5 days since I had last visited the market! A few minutes later I realized that 5 days in the Kosti- context is actually quite long. While my friend and I continued walking on the street, a car stopped in front of us. A man came from behind the wheel and started smiling, handshaking and greeting my friend very warmly. It felt like they hadn't seen each other for ages and accidentally bumped into each other. But, once again, the opposite was true: "That was my uncle. He lives in the same neighbourhood, but I hadn't seen him for a long time!"- Oh nice that you had the change to finally speak to him again. When was the last time you saw him?"- "Three full days ago!"
Monday, September 10, 2012
Nomadic life

Sunday, September 9, 2012
A sprinkling suprise
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