Day 16 - Blanket Festival and Artist Visit (7/10/11)

Today was a rather slow and quiet day. We went to breakfast this morning at 9:00 which was nice and had a warm breakfast of eggs and bacon - yummy :) After breakfast, we were off to the 2011 Lesotho Blanket Festival which was quite different than what we thought. It was such a huge space, but there were only a few stands with purchasable items and it was honestly quite dull. In fact when we got there it seemed that they were still setting up which was funny because it started at 10 and we didn't even arrive until almost 11:00. It's funny because in Africa time means literally nothing. You may plan to have a meeting at 10, but you can pretty much guarantee that the meeting won't start until 10:30/11:00 anyways. The things that's kind of interesting is that no matter what you still have to be on time and you still need to wait for your guests to arrive. That's what they call "Africa time".

This afternoon we met with 4 artists who shared information about their work and the type of art they do. 'M'e Lisebo (di-seh-bo) was a cultural professor who taught us about her tailoring skills and what makes them so important. The second guy we heard from was Retsepile Moholi or "Rets" for short. He is an artist and art lecturer at the Lesotho College of Education. He had some work at a guy named Patricks studio who we visited a few days earlier.







His theme has been focused on cultural identity and authenticity. He was always interested in how people were interested in cultural signifiers, and focused on this to use for his work. He mostly used pine wpod, nails,burlap, oil paints and some stains. Nice work, but super expensive. His art takes a lot of shape and is a reflection on his interpersonal life and emotions. He believes that his art is an expression that you present when you are feeling a certain way. It is uniquely human.

Another guy we saw, named Desire Chitongo, created animals out of scrap metal from cars. These pieces were incredible and really cool to look at. Most of these he could make from start to finish in two hours which is incredible. Desire uses a clear varnish sprayed on the metal first, then he adds tint to the metal next which still allows for some of the metal to be seen through the tint. In order to get the shape he draws the design straight onto the metal, cuts it out with a hand saw, and then creates the shape with a hammer and wooden form.







Wow, so just when you think your night is over Lineo, pronounced Dineo, brought in a music group to come perform for us. These guys rocked the house with a bunch of homemade instruments and an accordion. In fact they brought the attention of many kids from the area and adults who joined in the music. At one point the jams got so good that everyone started dancing. At any point during the music there could have been somewhere around 30 people dancing and smiling at this impromptu party.

There were a variety of instruments which were kind of interesting as well. Three to be in fact which include a guitar of some sorts, a homemade drum, and an accordion. With the exception of the accordion, both the guitar and drums really took some creative designing.

Guitar - old turpentine looking can, with a large stick wedged into the side and attached to it's end was a long string tied to the can. It was played with a bow which was a hard stick with horse hair strings.

Drums - old steel drum, large handle for toting it around, small wire attached to that handle with little 2"x2" squares that acted as a cymbal/rattle noise to accompany the beating. There were also two drum sticks make from recycled tire that were easily as thick and long as a good handful of spaghetti. On the side of the drum was a rubber pad which was used to lift the drum at an angle off of the ground for s slightly different sound.







It was a cool use of recycled materials for sure. Reminded me of being home with my folks jammin on things in the house to make noise. Very fun evening which was a much needed change of pace from the slow morning with the "festival". Great day

Alexi Murdoch - good music to listen to according to Elizabeth

- With all my thanks :)

Location:Trading Post, Roma, Lesotho