Last weekend we visited the Zanzibar equivalent of The Oscars. The Zanzibar International Film Festival or ZIFF. The largest gathering of film professionals, stars et al to celebrate African film. Among the celebs were no less than Morgan Freeman, Laurence Fishburne and Forest Whitaker (go and watch the King of Scotland if you haven’t already. A cracking film for which Forest Whitaker got the Best Actor Oscar). I’m sure you’ll agree, a pretty impressive line-up.

He didn’t show up

He didn’t show up

He didn’t show up

Oh dear. Never mind. The hoi polloi from the mainland did show up but had to mingle with the sweaty massed ranks of the rest of us. And the odd goat. Unlike the swanky elitist Oscars, €1.50 or being edible was enough to get you through the door. There was a reddish carpet, unfortunately overlain on loosely concreted rubble which constituted the auditorium floor. It made the ladies in heels not very happy. It was held in an open air auditorium. The starry night sky was a nice touch. The washing up hanging from all the building windows above and behind the stage and some old bloke on his balcony scratching his nuts wasn’t so ambient. The sound system kept cutting out. Half the nominees didn’t turn up so some poor bloke, an usher, an ice-cream seller, who knows, was shoved up to collect the prizes.

He was getting in to it by the fifth time of asking

The intermission performance included a traditional African dance troupe resplendent in local grass skirts and Nike Air Skin Shorts and a snake charmer. At some point the snake charmer figured out the biggest reaction was when he stuck the snake’s head in his mouth. At which point his efforts to repeatedly shove it in and out of his mouth began to look disturbingly sexual. He was gently dragged off after gagging on it. The snake, dripping in snot and phlegm, had to make its own way off. It was a night out.

. . . and she died.

Not because she was invited to ZIFF, but of timely old age. The dodgy ZIFF link allows me to point out that up until her demise, Bi Kidude was the leading exponent of Taarab, the traditional music of East Africa. And yes, she was well over a hundred years but no one quite knows exactly how old. I’m not going to say rush out and buy Taarab as some liken it to the sound of someone and their cat having hot pokers stuck in them. I however, think she was fab . Nadine and I have been lucky enough to have seen her perform and she was quite an act. Swaying her booty and belting out Taarab tunes. I’ll leave you to conjure up the image. If that’s an image too far you can catch her here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxBf5z3eoqo