The Forensic Ear

* a note: the names I list here are probably mispelled, but I did my best. It's hard catching on here.

There is so much in my head right now that I don’t know how I can possibly compose it in a narrative form. The urge to just pour it all out is overwhelmingly strong, but due to the already bizarre and magical nature of the past days’ events, I sense that structure is essential for general comprehension. If this ends up sounding bland or boxed, it is only because it was too smoke-curlingly fluid for words.

It started at 18:00 and ended at 3:30.

At six pm on Tuesday evening, as Daniel, Seb, and I sat at the kitchen table, watercoloring swans, alligators and giraffes, respectively, Pat announced that his friend Ngozi was at Khwest. He had been speaking adoringly about Ngozi and her crew of artists since the day we met him, so we jumped at the chance to meet the already legendary bunch. No one was sure if it was poetry night or not, but Seb and Pat packed their instruments anyways, and we hopped in the car with Shorty, Kwasi, Tubs, and Will, headed to the Main Mall.

I know I’ve written about poetry nights at Khwest, but the space itself deserves an explanation as well. It is a small-ish café with ample outdoor porch room, situated on the second floor of the two-story shops that line the Main Mall plaza. Regarding ambience, my memory conjures up a dim-ish orange lit interior, a black light in the night air, clinking glasses, a good sound system, and wobbly chairs. When we arrived on Tuesday, the place was emptier than I’d seen it before, and we soon located Ngozi and her cousins.

From the start, I could hardly keep my legs still – there was something about each person I was introduced to that just sent small shivers of excitement throughout my body. Astoundingly, each time I said hello to a new face, it seemed as though another one would join the crowd – a constant flow of hand shakes and warm greetings, popularity with all the pop. Most incredibly, the unifying and unique group characteristic was that everyone seemed to be an artist of their own sort – eager to talk about the scene and their dreams and to scroll through reams of ideas and thoughts and sketches and music notes. And more than humbly revealing themselves, they all were genuinely and electrically interested in what we and everyone else had to offer. Within the first five minutes of sitting down at an outdoor table, Ngozi whipped out three phenomenal pencil drawins she’s been working on, and Daniel was passing his camera to enlighten with light graffiti. Seb was chatting drums, Shorty and Kwasi were reminiscing about lost music tracks, and I was talking writing. Perspectives on the development of the Gaborone art scene also cycled round the table, and it was absolutely fascinating to hear about the fledging efforts to really make change and foster creativity here.

It may sound strange, but I have often felt intense pangs of nostalgia for creative movements that I wasn’t a part of. The artistic and intellectual renaissances throughout history have all seemed as distant and magical as the fiction I adore. Until now. It isn’t that I’m claiming to have stepped into a great revolution, not by any means. But the energy and enthusiasm projected Tuesday by this group of artists was the closest I’ve ever felt to the center of things – the closest I’ve ever gotten to the beginning of something. Over the past two months I have often bemoaned the seeming dearth of art and creative energy in the city. Gaborone is a creature unto itself, and does not resemble any focal point of culture that I have ever encountered before. Tuesday, however, these illusions were cleared as I lay my finger on the pulse of something beautiful.

Two phrases that Kwasi kept using when speaking about music and art– and Daniel immediately jotted down – were “the forensic ear” and “the forensic eye.” I know I just wrote a few days ago that it is rare for something to be able to explain itself, but I’m going to have to contradict that here. Kwasi, IS the forensic ear and eye. Everyone there that night was. Over the course of evening, conversation skipped smoothly along the surface and then down into the depths, gliding through religion, love, history, life, death, childhood, parenthood, music, art, poetry, politics, stasis and dynamism, production and destruction. The instantaneous click amongst minds was brilliantly refreshing, and it carried its own energy as well.

After a few drinks and some conversation, we shifted over a few tables and unobtrusively assembled for a quiet outdoor jam session. In the glowing purple of a black light, Seb and Pat began to play the latter’s own tunes – now well beloved by all of us. The circle was tight and the rhythm was tighter and heads were nodding as shutters clicked, and I sat at the feet of the beat with a recorder in hand. It’s hard not to move and be moved in company like that, and soon remarkable things were happening. People all around me began freestyling about the pain and gain of love, the loss of a child, the presence of god, and the feeling of feeling. Pat’s soft strumming and seb’s pitter patter lifted the words to inexplicable heights and I felt like I was floating along on some strange sea.

Perhaps around 11 pm, everyone decided that a studio session was a must (you see? things just roll here) and we all piled once again into cars to head to Mex’s house. There was a strange stop at a dodgy bar, but otherwise the trip was direct. Along the way however, Marsha, a beautiful, young, composed, smooth breeze of a woman, casually dropped a sentence that caught my soul in my throat. She was speaking adoringly of her baby boy, when Daniel asked her how old he was. “He was a little over twelve months,” she said. “He passed away three weeks ago.” I started crying before I could realize that I needed to and scrunched my eyes as hard as I could to hide the moisture from a woman who looked bone dry. I don’t know that I have ever felt so intensely close to death, or such an overwhelming urge of sympathy and sadness. Perhaps it’s that I’ve spent the past two months cheek to cheek and hand in hand with the tiniest of beings, or perhaps it’s just an instinctual, visceral, painful identification with a mother’s grief, but regardless, it was terrible. Much later in the evening, as one day shifted into the next and Pat revealed that Mex had just had a baby boy, Marsha would talk about how her baby was a life changing gift, how parenthood was a joy, and how wonderfully perfect it was that now she could give all of her son’s old things to the new child. The baby’s father, Kago, was also present, but his emotions exploded erratically, in contrast with Marsha’s demeanor. Although obviously struggling with the finality of death and the horrible absence she now faces, she was visibly and firmly standing in opposition to the forces of grief. I still can’t wrap my mind around that strength. After a few more minutes of light hearted conversation in the car, we pulled up to a residential gated house, greeted a roaming dog, and walked through the door of heaven.

A garage converted into a top line recording studio, Mex’s spot was like an oasis in this arid land. Daniel and Seb and I kept swapping glances and shoulder pokes of astonished “WHERE ARE WE’S?” and seb’s luminous eyes grew only wider when they alighted upon a gleaming set of drums. Everyone assembled and popped tops off Savannah Dry’s, and Mex began consulting with all involved artists on the vision for the track. Ngozi would add sweet smooth vocals, Seb would record a few loops using various drums, Pat would add some bass to his guitar strummings, and perhaps Kwasi and Shorty would rap over top of the concoction later. We had the opportunity to listen to a few of the past projects by the group, and we were all absolutely blown away by the individual and collective talent.

The night was long and spiraled inward on itself, and I felt my eyes closing against my will around midnight. I spent the next few hours curled up on chairs, shifting half closed lids back and forth between each beatific face. I don’t think I’ve seen so much natural glow and beauty in a room in a very long time. Seb was in another world with his drumming (everyone was there with him) and the end product of a few hours work was an excellent foundation for future mixing and tweaking.

It took us about an hour to get a cab to take us home, and by the time we walked out of Mex’s, back into the cold of a 3 am air, we were all floating around a bit. Numbers were exchanged and thank yous whispered ,and real live genuine hugs were pressed.

Back at UB, over thickly spread pb&j sandwiches in Daniel’s dim suite, the three of us could hardly speak, and I can assure you it wasn’t the peanut butter. It is hard to even begin to address the random, lucky, absurd, incredible, beautiful, strange, intensity of those 9 hours, and at the time it felt almost sacrilegious to try. Seb went to sleep as a musician with tracks in Africa, and we all dozed off to the stuff of magic.

I said it that evening, and I’ll repeat it here: it is incredible, the people you can’t imagine.

This is something that has been swaying through my head over the past few weeks, occasionally lodging in a specific spot and prompting the urge to fiercely hug the people around me. I feel so humbled and so lucky to be here with Seb and Dan, meeting the beautiful people we’re meeting, and adventuring daily into the new and surprising – a feeling coupled with my never-ending astonishment at the simple fact that I’m here to begin with.

How? Why? I really don’t know. But I’m glad.