by Martin Boben

18 January 2006

Freetown, Sierra Leone: In Freetown, there is an area of the city called Cultural Village. People living there are engaged in all sorts of cultural activities such as carvings and drum making. To fill my free time, I decided to learn to play the djembe, or African drum. This was possible through a guy I met living in Cultural Village named Obai Kamara.

When I met Obai, he told me about his wish to make his music more popular and to use it to tell stories on social issues like HIV/AIDS and link it to traditional dancing. I liked the idea and liked his music.

Obai also leads a cultural troupe called Ogala. He obviously needed help and so in the spirit of volunteerism I decided to support him. As a first step, we prepared a small brochure in order to get publicity. Secondly, after discovering a small audio studio in Freetown, and that Obai had some songs that he wished to record, I bought some studio time for him. He now has four of his songs recorded. But with the recordings completed, we realized we needed to do something to get a daily cash flow going to support Ogala.

In order to make Ogala sustainable, we needed other ideas. We decided the following: get a TV and DVD. (Acquiring these items in Freetown is not an easy task as they are costly.) With the money gained from drumming, Obai bought a DVD player. The next step was to obtain a TV to be able to use the DVD to watch movies.

That’s where we got the idea of holding a village cinema. Obai and I struck a deal: He would make benches for the village cinema, which we would set-up in the Ogala club, also known as Obai’s house, and I would provide the TV. We both kept our side of the agreement and the result has been great: Ogala shows movies in the evenings. Children enter free, while adults have to make a small contribution.

In addition, Ogala also has some internationals and expatriates learning how to play drum. A CD is planned as are drums made at Ogala. I am having lots of fun during drumming lessons. Several experienced drummers and me get together and we “make a groove”.