Chiwoniso at the Book Cafe

Chiwoniso Maraire

I have never been one for live bands. I have never seen Mutukudzi, Macheso or any local artist live (except of course for Winky D). So much for patriotism.

Saturday saw me dragging myself to Chiwoniso's little singing event at the Book Cafe. I am a fan through one song in which she sings about her dead mother and trees.

 Her voice is ethereal.

I was disappointed. She never sang about her mother.

She sang about war, selling veges and a dead grandpa.

Not enough to hold my attention. So began the three hour battle to stay awake, between blinking I had a hard time opening them. I may have danced in a trance like state. With my head nodding and my feet asleep.

My need to eat managed to keep them open for a bit, and then it was bedtime in the Cafe again.

 I may have felt a flash of guilt when she looked across the room at me and gave me the most amazing smile. It flashed. And disappeared, as someone else caught her attention. Perhaps the drunken fella who kept pledging his undying love for her. The white woman. dressed like a homeless hobo or maybe the Ghanaian guy sitting quietly in a corner(I never spoke to him, not even a word but his clothes and his haircut-an undecided Mohawk- gave him away).

She really does have the most beautiful voice, sleep or no sleep. I was probably just tired.