Ok where do we begin? You see, every month we try to put into words our impressions about that month’s Africa Night. We have been doing these write-ups now for about 5 years now. Our major angst every month is the fear of being repetitive. That is a major possibility if you are writing about the same theme every month. This month, We are going to befriend and embrace that fear. We are going to be repetitious and we are not going to make apologies to ourself. We will make our fear take over and rule us for this one month only.
Why are we saying this? It is because the August edition of Africa Night has to rate as one of the best ever. It was certainly the best in 2009. Followers of this blog would have read something like this many times before. De javu? Yes. This is the feeling you get when everything seems to come together to create a great party and atmosphere. And we are proud to say that this honour seems to fall on us time and time again. So pardon us if you’ve read something like this before.
Every sign pointed a very ordinary Africa Night in August 2009. It is a vacation month in the Netherlands. So you expected people would be away with the family and the loved ones. It is also the height of the festival season in these shores. Every weekend, there are numerous open-air (free) festivals to choose from. On this Africa Night weekend, there were 4 or 5 to choose from. But the major pointer to a very ordinary Africa Night was the weather. It was a very tropically warm day with temperatures reaching 30 degrees Celsius. Even in the winter, the hall where we organize Africa Night is always natural warm when the party people are having fun. So you can imagine how warm it was going to be like on this, the warmest day of the month so far. With that in mind, we did not think anyone was going to want to brace the heat. So we expected a few people might stay away. Also this edition was right in the middle of the month (the 15th). And even though everybody knows that our show is always every 3rd Saturday of the month, there are a lot of people who always get confused every time a month like this has 5 Saturdays. These people always show up a week later! Lastly, a couple of the diehards of Africa Night had already told me that for various reasons, they were going to skip this edition. Almost the whole of our Belgian contingent was at various open air festivals.
At the beginning of the night, We were sure we were going to be proven right. Until just about 23.30 hours, the hall was virtually empty. In the event the ordinary became the extraordinary. People just started pouring in. In the end we had the busiest night of the year so far. What makes it even special is the fact that more than half of the visitors were new people. This is a phenomenon that has kept Africa Night fresh and refreshing through the years. We remember remarking to a regular visitor that it seems people who cannot come always called up other people to replace them!
And hot it was on this edition. I am sure it would have been more than 50 degrees Celsius inside the hall at a point. It was like dancing in the sauna. People were sweating but seemed oblivious of this because of the great ambiance inside. The DJ was at his best and seemed to elevate the art of music selection to an even higher level. When I spoke with him about this, his reaction was that since this people came to dance, he was going to oblige them! However it was so hot that we decided to throw all doors and window open at around 01.45 hours. This really helped to bring the temperature down.
Our personal highlight of the evening was the young Dutch lady who was there for the first time and saw a guy that she last saw 6 years ago in Guinea! What are the odds of that happening? They had lost all contacts and here they were, coincidentally brought together by Africa Night. Sometimes, Africa Night makes things happen.
Discover the joy of African music & dance!
