I’ve been back in the UK for nearly a week now and thankfully it’s been mainly warm and sunny which is always better when you come back from somewhere hot – last year we came back to freezing conditions.
The Kartong Festival was brilliant this year, mainly because for the first time the Kartonkas themselves did most of the pre-planning and organising! This gives us great hope for the future of the festival. They’ll still need some technical help next year – especially with lighting and wiring but they planned all the programme and artists, food for artists, publicity. We helped with providing a stage manager, electrics and ticketing/wristbanding but pretty much everything else was locally run. We’re planning on returning in November to do some training/pre-planning and then not attending next February for the first time as the only way to really make the festival happen without us for the first time – sink or swim but we believe they can swim now!! It will be the eighth year after all!
For the first time, I played at the festival myself – flute with my kora playing friend Moriba Kuyarteh.
Here’s a video of us jamming with some other musicians at Tesito Ecolodge – the sound’s not brilliant but you get the general idea. Thanks to everyone for making it such a great festival this year
Chandra and Moriba at Tesito With Moussa and Chris