The festival itself was on a mountain, on a cool October day. There were people playing rugby nearby and children playing in a park. The festival was the perfect vertex to the triangular scene of activities on the slightly hilly field.
The first thing I noticed was that this 'African' Festival had only a few Africans. To be specific, there were three Africans there. Everyone else were either Japanese or from another country. Anyways, this is usual at Japanese festivals, so I didn't think too much about it.
The Africans present did not speak English, given that they were French Africans. So, we conversed in Japanese, which felt a bit strange on my end.
They had smoked fish and cheese for sale, counterfeit African prints (because they were cheap) and a chicken stew with mounds of onions for sale. I tried some of the smoked food, but the mounds of onions that I sighted in the pot were too much for me.
The main event of the day, however, was the music, not the food.
The guy in the picture above was playing what sounded and looked like a version of the xylophone. I would definitely prefer this African version to the one that I grew up knowing. The African xylophone has interesting wine jug looking percussion instruments that support it from beneath. From my sparse research, I've found that the instrument is called a 'balafon' and apparently it is popular throughout West Africa and has a few variations.
The video above is a sample of the musical offerings at the festival. There was a lot of dancing barefooted on the ground and at one point, members of the crowd were pulled onto the stage to join in the dancing.
The music and dancing were fine, but the best part of the day was seeing the little drummer, from whom I didn't even hear a note. This little girl here
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