Singing at a rural town festival

This was a couple of weekends back now but it being our first, and perhaps only, festival appearance, it's worthy of a belated blog entry. Near to the community Lagartillo where we have spent a couple of weeks and where the language school is based, is the small town of Achuapa. Our friend Nick knows lots of people here and works closely with the local farmer's cooperative which supplys sesame seed oil to the Body Shop for its cosmetics. This meant that somehow or another, we were 'connected' to the festival and a performance of some sort or another was expected of us. The annual arts festival began nine years ago, and participation by all seems to be one of its overriding features. The festival kicks off on the Friday night with the 'Golden Festival' for performing old timers who played the fiddle, sang and danced. The Saturday festival began around 4pm and went on until 2ish. The silk blazer band.

It involved anyone who wanted to get up on stage, from local children's dance groups to a rock band from Managua and a brilliant Nicaraguan singer-songwriter Salvador Cardenal. Together with our friends Nick and Rachel, we sang Nina Simone's, 'I wish I knew how it would feel to be free', which was probably bearable only because of Felice's fantastic effort on the piano. I fought off the urge to be sick or run away before we went on stage, translated the fourth verse to the audience of a few thousand people, because the words of the song are incredible, and actually quite enjoyed the whole thing. We were back up on stage later on as backing dancers doing a side step shuffle whilst Nick played the piano. We sat down for the next part when our American friend Rachel dazzled everyone with her impressive Irish dance moves.

Small festivals beware, maybe we'll start looking for more places to put in a performance. Simon during one of his more inspired moments

The festival did sum up something special about Nicaragua - music and dance is a big part of people's lives, and no matter your ability, you are encouraged to get stuck in and are treated as equals. The most talented musicians don't seem to put themselves on a pedestal here and the audience does its best to be enthusiastic about everything.