¿Por qué me pegas?
I wish I had a picture to post of last night, but didn't have my camera along, and I couldn't find a decent picture on the nets. And so you'll have to make do with my description.
Alvaro Restrepo, the founder and director of the Colegio del Cuerpo (see previous post below), had a going-away dinner for Gisele last night. But about two hours before we were set to go there, we received a call from a friend, a French girl named Veronique, who is married to a Colombian singer named Marco. Marco's musician friends were over, and they were all playing and dancing and singing and drinking rum, so we walked around the block to join them. When I entered the foyer, I saw maybe 12 people inside, about half of them musicians playing away, and then some older people dancing. One thing I want to point out is that they were almost all black--which is worth noting, because there's not a lot of racial mixing in this city.
One woman I found particularly striking. She was well into in 70s, thin and frail, black and dressed in an old-fashioned green dress. I guessed that she was the mother of one of the musicians, and I thought it was really cute that she was there with everyone, clapping her hands with the music.
The she stood up and began to sing, "¿Mamá, por qué me pegas?," ("Mother, why do you hit me?") and I knew I had heard her voice before. She was one of the singers on the Alé Kuma CD I bought last year, a slightly awkward fusion of jazz and the rhythmic afro-colombian music of the coast. "¿Por qué me pegas?" was always my favorite song on that CD, and to witness it being performed in a foyer with 12 other people present was nothing short of a religious experience.
The singer's name is Etelvina Maldonado, and she writes the songs she sings. She's told me about her travels in Europe last year, from Hungary to Austria to Germany and Paris, but she also told me that she still washes clothes in order to make a living. Her voice has as much soul as anyone's I've ever heard. Listen for yourself by clicking on the above link. Really, this music is so extraordinarily rich, I think you'd be blown away if you could see it live.
Dinner at Alvaro's was probably more of a New York experience than any I ever had actually living in New York. Along with Alvaro's novelist partner, Leopoldo, the guests included a dancer from New York, his parter, a New York Times editor in the Washington bureau, the painter Ruby Rumié, the consul of Spain (who is my landlady now), and her husband. What a crowd! We ate a delicious seafood dish typical to the Colombian coast, and drank wine and talked until past 2.
Well, today I move into my new place, but first I'm going to the beach for a few hours. Finally.
And really, just to the link above and listen to some of Etelvina's music. I'll write more about her sometime soon.
Alvaro Restrepo, the founder and director of the Colegio del Cuerpo (see previous post below), had a going-away dinner for Gisele last night. But about two hours before we were set to go there, we received a call from a friend, a French girl named Veronique, who is married to a Colombian singer named Marco. Marco's musician friends were over, and they were all playing and dancing and singing and drinking rum, so we walked around the block to join them. When I entered the foyer, I saw maybe 12 people inside, about half of them musicians playing away, and then some older people dancing. One thing I want to point out is that they were almost all black--which is worth noting, because there's not a lot of racial mixing in this city.
One woman I found particularly striking. She was well into in 70s, thin and frail, black and dressed in an old-fashioned green dress. I guessed that she was the mother of one of the musicians, and I thought it was really cute that she was there with everyone, clapping her hands with the music.
The she stood up and began to sing, "¿Mamá, por qué me pegas?," ("Mother, why do you hit me?") and I knew I had heard her voice before. She was one of the singers on the Alé Kuma CD I bought last year, a slightly awkward fusion of jazz and the rhythmic afro-colombian music of the coast. "¿Por qué me pegas?" was always my favorite song on that CD, and to witness it being performed in a foyer with 12 other people present was nothing short of a religious experience.
The singer's name is Etelvina Maldonado, and she writes the songs she sings. She's told me about her travels in Europe last year, from Hungary to Austria to Germany and Paris, but she also told me that she still washes clothes in order to make a living. Her voice has as much soul as anyone's I've ever heard. Listen for yourself by clicking on the above link. Really, this music is so extraordinarily rich, I think you'd be blown away if you could see it live.
Dinner at Alvaro's was probably more of a New York experience than any I ever had actually living in New York. Along with Alvaro's novelist partner, Leopoldo, the guests included a dancer from New York, his parter, a New York Times editor in the Washington bureau, the painter Ruby Rumié, the consul of Spain (who is my landlady now), and her husband. What a crowd! We ate a delicious seafood dish typical to the Colombian coast, and drank wine and talked until past 2.
Well, today I move into my new place, but first I'm going to the beach for a few hours. Finally.
And really, just to the link above and listen to some of Etelvina's music. I'll write more about her sometime soon.
posted by robertkelleya at 1:26 PM
4 Comments:
chill, blogmaster, hit the beach.
Gonna have Cajun food at that there Jambalaya?
If a blog falls in the forest....
Yeah, actually bringing down a chef from New Orleans to cook up some cajun food with some of Cartagena's best chefs. Should be awesome.
Hahaha, and don't worry, I got some nice beach time in on Sunday.
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