swahili encounters

is the name of the 3-day workshop I'm in, at the Dhow Countries Music Academy. The room we're in has a high ceiling, a cement floor, shuttered windows that look out on foam-tipped waves, rolling in to the shoreline. I could happily just sit in the workshop, look out the window, listen to the music, and dream.

But that's not on the agenda. 13 of us have been selected to create "two new compositions, or two new interpretations of Swahili songs" for the Sauti za Busara Festival. We'll perform it in 3 days time. I'm the only poet. The others are all musicians, from Zanzibar, East Africa, the Swahili-speaking world, with one Senegalese Kora player and one Swedish polska player. They all seemed to gel right away, yesterday, and after some fumbling, found combinations of sound that made them all smile.

I was miserable. Felt out of my depth, out of my genre, totally ill-at-ease with being thrown a mic and asked to spout words into the jam. I'm not an improviser, especially not in a group of mostly swahili-speakers. I don't feel confident enough with music to know when to jump in, when to retreat, when to merge.