Vuvuzela: Music to Move your Body & Soul

 

A month after that night in Zanzibar I would be sitting in a mountain side guest house above Rishikesh reading about Sufism. Osho says:

Only in dance do you start falling with the heartbeat of the whole. Only in dance does the moment of grace arrive when you are not and God is. Only in dance does the separation between the mind and body disappear – and you are one whole, all together, no more fragmentary. …If you dance deeply, so deeply that the dancer disappears in the dance, this is prayer.

The Silence of the Heart – Osho

Vuvuzela: The Sounds of Zanzibar

Another evening lost walking home from Africana BBQ, but this time I got more lost than usual. The rains flooded the village. Navigating around the high water forced me off my usual route. I wove the dirt paths around stone buildings and tires, dirt soccer fields and schools, until I got so completely turned around I wasn’t even sure which direction home was in. The starless night sky offering no aid to my path. A local pointed me toward the “roadi.” I did not live on the main road, but I counted on being able to at least navigate more successfully from there, so I walked in the direction he pointed. I had little other choice. Once on the main road I realized just how far from home I was. Getting this lost after four days of living in the tiny village of Padje seemed unforgivable.

I looked around the unlit village laying quietly in beneath the dark night sky trying to get my bearings. Standing on the main road I heard the distant beat of African music. When I left California, I noted to myself the three things that had always given me the greatest joy, the exact things I had all but completely lost in my life as I barrelled toward burnout – swimming, eating well, and dancing. Standing on the main road, I found music to move my hips, and soothe my soul. The sounds were faint to be sure, but no less powerful because of that. I considered the large roll of newspaper wrapped take away chapati I was holding leftover from my evening meal, my dorky large frame eye glasses and my linen coveralls – I wasn’t exactly ready for the club. I briefly consider turning around and going home to change, put away my chapati and put in my contact lens, but the beat tugged at heart, and I decided to follow it. I turned toward the music, the opposite direction from home.

Sounds, like waves on the sea, can be farther away than they first appear. I walked along the shoulder of the main road for what felt like a long time, following the music growing louder, but not catching quite it. I found myself at the edge of the village, but still could not see the origin of the music. I paused for a minute to consider how far from home I had gone, to consider again the newspaper bundle of buttery chapatti that was now greasing my palm and my large dorky glasses and my Birkenstock sandals that would surely make it difficult to dance. But by this point I had lost all ability to do anything other than find the source of the sound; I kept walking.