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Somebody else’s husband at the Arusha fiesta!By Valentine Marc Nkwame Wonder where the local youth population had spent last Saturday night? Well, they were dancing the dusk away in Sakina, at the Blue Triple "A" grounds, celebrating something called "Fiesta!" Now, this thing being called "Fiesta!" is actually an orgy of drinking sprees, dancing, plus indulging into all sort of profanity, that could be practised under the cover of darkness. And darkness it was. You see the said "Fiesta" kicked off at Six in the evening and went on until some minutes to Seven the following day. That is last Sunday .... No reports of casualties (Yet). Anyway, for the local youths, Fiesta means Music, or to be precise, their music. Their Music, on the other hand, is a medley of thrown in sound beats, normally delivered in extremely loud bass, for good effect. The music, which is a Hundred percent digital sampling, thanks to the current availability of computers, normally sounds like a night of anarchy in Iraq. Jumping up and down along noises similar to ground missile firing the music lyrics, if any, mainly focus on a single topic known as "Demu!" Demu is the name given to any lady who dresses on either trousers or mini-skirts. The plural for Demu is "Mademu!" In Tanzania, the local youths usually write their own lyrics, make their own music, buy their own music and sing along to their own music .... Pumped out at 10,000 decibels. Last week’s Arusha Fiesta, featured 12 hours of dancing to that same music, while some few local "pop stars," flexed their tonsils on an outdoor placed stage, singing aloud about one "Demu" or another. The orgy was extremely fully packed, that is despite the fact that, entrance fees were set at Tsh.4,000 per head. You see, we are currently living in the time when, local youths will even pay to dance at a blinking refrigerator pilot light. Never mind, but the Fiesta, which was essentially an orgy, got to be broadcast live on air by one of the local FM Stations. This was done so that the rest of the youths who didn’t attend, may get to hear what they were missing. For some reason, the youths in Arusha love the night, the darker the better and last Saturday’s night, happened to be very dark .... not to forget the chilling cold weather. Apparently, the FM Station failed to broadcast about what usually happens when hundreds of youths, male and female, get locked up together, in an enclosed area, under very dark and cold night, with unlimited supply of beer then add music that sounds like World War Three. Somehow in between the Bhang! Boom! Twaff! Screech and Thump! Some lyrics would manage to find their way out of the seemingly one Zillion watts (RMS) rated, loud speakers, placed on either sides of the performers’ stage. "Ninaooo - Ninaooo- Ninaooo!" Screamed one of the local "Pop stars" meaning: "I have it! I have it! .... Apparently the singer was boasting about having HIV-AIDS (!?) That is what we call Fiesta, an all night long session of booze, music and youths getting to know each other intimately, as they boast about having Aids. Another singer later took onto the stage. Dressed in a pair of jeans, huge sneakers and a cap, it took a while before one realized that the singer was actually a female. The fact that she also introduced herself by the name of, "Dataz," didn’t help very much to reveal her gender either. Anyway, she grabbed the microphone and got into the serious business of singing. Like all other local youth pop stars, she belted her tune in Swahili, or at least, a language that sounded like Swahili, which means, unless a new Swahili dictionary is published, some of these songs may as well have been sung in Greek. Still, as she rhumbled on, about "Kuvinjari" "Msela" and of course "Demu", it became apparent that, the lady was singing about how fun and exciting it was, going to bed with somebody else’s husband(!) " ... Very Caring!" she maintained. " ... Always around when you need him." Mm. That’s what I call Fiesta, an all night long dance, which in order to attend, you may first need to take an afternoon siesta ... with somebody else’s husband of course. Tanzania has become a Nation of Singers. It is very likely that we may be having more "pop stars" here than the entire continent combined. At least "an album" or nine, get released with each passing day, either here in Arusha, Mwanza, or Dar es salaam. In fact, one of them got released during the last week’s "Fiesta". Mind you, the over one million albums which have so far been released, (each with a life span of five days), all seems to address the issue of, "Demu" or "Mademu!" It seems like these "Demus" have started to be spending most of their time with somebody else’s husband. Or at least, they have just learned the trade at the Fiesta. ..... Wives be Afraid, be very afraid!
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