by
Andrea Grieder
Rain has transformed the pathway into a muddy and slippery slope. In front of me, a stylishly dressed girl in high heels! Jhariana is part of Seeds Fashion Group, initiated by Ras Kasozi. Walking proud and beautiful is an expression of style and womanhood, the profession as a model.
Bayimba Arts Festivals now enters its twelfth edition, the second one holding on Lunkulu island. The island has been bought by the visionary man behind the Festival, Faizal Kiwewa. During the year, workers live on the island to maintain the place. Some of them, with their babies on the back, join the party people during the party hours at the beach. Once a year, the island is embraced by Music. Faizal and the Festival team prepare the Island for a four-day music and party period: Birds and stones, trees and flowers are shaking by the rhyme of music. “They are singing” is, in fact, the translation of Bayimba from Luganda.
There are two ways to reach on the island. One, by boat. The other, mostly for local people, is the mud way, which leads over a wooden bridge to the island.
The festival demonstrates an interesting scope of shoes and their owners’ personalities: Ihariana is one of them. The party people and staff wear mostly black boots for its practical dimension, others simply go barefoot, as mud can easily be washed off and cleaned.
A combination, and my favourite one is yellow boots for being fashionable and practical at the same time.
A large variety of mostly Ugandan musicians play on the main stage, sometimes in front of a handful people, sometimes for a joyful dancing crowd. Besides them, artists from fashion, visual arts, film and video create their spaces for inspiration and reflection: The Walls we Built is a Video Installation on the island, expressing artistic works and creating an international exchange between Ugandan, Rwandan, German, Portuguese and Congoese Artists. The wooden box is much a metaphor of the box we may create in our minds.
How feels home? And what if home is not a place, but experiences, people, stories? A young man, a refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo, living in Uganda, speaks and it is thought-provoking: “I know the day I will leave the Refugee Camp, I will also miss it.” Why? Because it is part of the stories I am made of. We learn that home is not only that safe and stable place but a transitory space too, a story we are able to tell, an authorship we claim.
Yule Burlefinger performs a poem Of home and belonging: “a place where I can breath, where I can feel relief…
“It is the compassion that I see in your eyes, your sympathy and empathy that lies between what you say and the way you look at me.” With Yule, home is my reflection in you. It is a journey to childhood and to myself.
Byumba Arts Festival may creates a home of people to experience a time of music… a time where the clock is left at the entrance gate, entering in a timeless frame. “You can go for a drink at the bar at 7 am and no-one will tell you, this is not the right time”, “You can eat breakfast at 4 pm, and no-one will ask questions about your timing” says Jean de Dieu, a journalist who came to the island as part of a blogger retreat. The Festival is creating this group for marketing purposes: a tourist attraction, a unique experience.
Pamela Aceye brought a poetry performance to the island. The lake is the stage.
Johnmary, responsible for Artistic Development, estimates around 2,000 persons attending the festival, slightly more than last year. Most of them spend the night dancing. They have brought their tents and sleeping material. The Festival team is ambitiously dreaming of an audience of 15,000 people. I laugh and ask where they would stay. He says that they would prepare some more land, so that the tent village can grow.
Having spent one night on the island, I would love see the island having bungalows or lodge places to stay as well. Sleeping in a tent is not everyone’s joy. For some, it creates waves of panic thoughts: What if the generator on the island turns off, and the whole island is in deep darkness? What if the battery of my phone shuts down and no more source of light is available? How to have peaceful night, in a space inside the tent which gives enough space to sleep, but not to breath and feel free. . . so small that dreams run in a cage.
I end up getting out of the tent and joining the party people – Music and Dancing a the beach. That is finally what the island is meant for.
Drums play until morning hours! Rhythmic and vibrating!
The DJ goes on playing until 7 am in the morning light.
I spend some hours sitting and sleeping amongst the party people. The most peaceful sleeping time was from 8 am to 10 am, in a hammock. The island is also a fascinating exploration of where and how best to sleep.
For some, the morning light is a relief from the long night, others fall asleep drunken with music and more. For me, I dance with the rising sun, lonely at the beach. The water is talking to me, in waves.
