While we could not see it...

We could certainly hear it....

Last night there was a special celebration with the Senegalese families in their compound next door. From about 7-11 a big soiree of people were coming and going - and the music we heard was incredible. For a period of time they had some live African music between the drumming and the singing - it was so melodic.  Unfortunately we were unable to capture a good audio clip from the kitchen window - lot of background noise of the people talking (as one should at a party).

After the the drumming - a different kind of chanting and singing started to take place  with the families - that must have gone on for a good 90 minutes. Because the "chanter" was hooked up to a microphone and a larger speaker was pointed in the direction of the kitchen we were able to capture some of it -- (so after 8 hours -I kid you not between me and Manning, reading, learning, testing and trouble shooting on how to embed an audio clip into a blog and specifically in the the Google Blogger - it came down to one thing in the very end a gosh darn extra space in the file name HTML did not like but of course was totally not obvious to us after staring at the screen for so long - brought back very clearly my days on the help desk for OS/2 at Schwab - I sense some head nodding about now with all you techie friends) - so without further ado -  here's the clip - press play and give it a moment and it will kick in!

We asked the "bonne" about this event and she said it was to celebrate a new baby.  And the African  language being chanted was Wolof the prevalent national Senegalese language spoken - it was obviously an experience we won't forget. 

While I admit I had much angst to start with regards to this apartment  - I also realize how much I'm coming to learn about the richness of what is here in such an impoverished place.