[this is the beginning of the end of the beginning of the end of the...]

”Little Tanzania”, summer 1995. It is pitch dark, the hot summer night is dry, but a cool breeze softens our skin. We’re in the middle of a small forest, my friend Matti and me- we curl up by a big tree and light up our spliffs. From the plain we can still hear the drumbeats, frenetic now, as the night has fueled away all logic and the people seem to exist on a higher plane of consciousness, evading their egos, fusioning into one thought, one body, one being, one dance... We will soon get back to the celebration. But for the time being, we enjoy the feeling of quiet contemplation, away from the camp lights and the drums. She grins at me in the dark, and giggle something inaudibly. I’m too tired to answer, I just nod at her in silence and continue to stare up at the stunning night sky... Over the forest and the field, the sky is wider, bigger, darker than I can ever remember seeing it before... The stars have suddenly amassed a special beauty, almost as little planets shining down at us, alight with the spirit of Shingweng’we, the mythical dragon the medicineman and his chum told us about earlier in the day, after the snakedance when the small kids needed a well-earned break and some entertaining fun... I shiver, it starts getting a bit too chilly suddenly. She looks at me without saying anything, yawns and hand me the spliff. -We smoke in silence. Distant singing, the rhythm of the dance, joyful shrieks of laughter, the rattling of sticks, a cacaphony of faraway voices, the odd bird waking from its sleep and croaking and flapping away to some part of the forest more quiet, away from the sounds of human folly and celebration and happiness...
She touches my arm, mumbles something. –“What?” I ask. She continues, her voice a little louder now. –“I will remember this moment always,” she says.


***
LISTEN:
[Robert Wyatt- Sea Song]