:: World Social Forum party
23 January 2007

Saturday was a lovely day. The Plan: Meetings; WAPI at the British Council followed by watching Liverpool playing Chelsea and then chill. It was a pretty good plan. After the meetings me and Al Kags headed to the British Council for WAPI only to be informed that we were frozen. Ati the event was over. Ouch. So we decided to check out Uhuru Park where there seemed to be something going down.

CMB Kenneth rules!

Uhuru Park of today is nothing like the Uhuru Park I used to cross every day when we were headed up the hill to Uppah in high school. That park used to be a serious dump. The best word to describe how we would pass that park would be "fast". Speed was of the essence when crossing that park. Off course, it didn't hurt from those jamu high school nuts lay waiting for us at uhuru park and then proceeded to chase us all the way back to Uppah with sticks and stones (which would definitely break my bones). Today Uhuru park is a thing of beauty. Lawn mowed, no litter and a semblance of a place one can relax in. I highly recommend it.

So we pass by Uhuru park and it turns out to be the World Social Forum crowd doing their event there. I know that there would be walking and that it would happening from Kibera. So these guys here were the ones who had been walking. I was suitably impressed. However, you can imagine when Al Kags and I walked in and the first refrain we heard was "down with capitalism!" OK I love capitalism and these guys are saying down with it. You can be sure that we were on high alert about what we said. However the other things they were down with I could live with. Down with George W Bush. Down with Poverty. Down with HIV/AIDS. Now these are causes I hold dear. Down with capitalism not so much.

We waded through the crowd and observed the socialist forum at full flow. There were several works of art that were clearly too deep for capitalist loving me. Apart from this there was a mish mash of people from all manner of cultures from all over the world. The delegate badges that were there were from all over the world - Norway, South Africa, East Africa, Italy, Philippines, Brazils et al. Basically all the regions of the world were represented at the event. Wow. The coolest group of pals there had to be the Western Sahara ones. They had come with their flags and were getting down like it was not 1999 yet. It was nice. I wonder what country they are trying to cede from.
This interesting lady was selling metal badges on the world social forum at a mere Kshs200. Man! If I had thought this through I would have come to this event. Ah well, maybe next time.

The stage was also awash with diversity. Kenneth Kaunda former president of Zambia was on had to give a major speech. Please bear in mind that the man had just come from walking all the way from Kibera. It was about the issues facing the developing world and what Zambia and he personally had done to combat these issues. This included debt, HIV/AIDS and pan Africanism amongst others. He gave solutions such as galvanizing support for every country that was in beef. It was a great speech. I noted that the World Social Forum was quite deaf friendly as they had dude translating into sign whatever the former prezzo said. Al Kags had to see a man about a dog and he missed all the bands that followed.

As the entertainment was starting to roll out who was to show up but seriously hot MC Angel of Ghetto Radio. We spent quite some time as we enjoyed a free concert. The problem with Kenyans off course is that if they hear music that they are not familiar with (radio music), they will always stay immobile. The thing is that this should never be the case.

The bands that Angel and I listened to were just the best. The best had to be this Brazilian band that performed and spoke in Portuguese. They were sublime. Initially pals were kidogi shy. However, by the time that band left, we had all worked up a sweat as we danced to their mad samba tunes. Wow. Does anyone know where I can listen to this kind of music in Nairobi by any chance? I like!

Jabali Afrika was also in the house and they brought the house with their mad tunes too. As was Suzzane Owiyo she of Kisumu 100 fame. And this group that had boys and a Mutabaruka looking pal that was reciting poetry and making us participate (wicked). A personal favourite was Awadi the senegalese rapper. He came with his group and the dudes were pure energy. I don't parlaise le francaise (speaka de French) but their performance was top notch. To die for. I couldn't believe I was getting such a huge number of performances for free. I had forgotten about Liverpool/Chelsea already.

P.s. Liverpool 2 Chelsea 0. Well done Liverpool.

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