I attended last week's camp with Epizo Bangoura at Bent's Basin.

This was the first (and probably only) time the camp was held there. Normally, it happens at the Bundagen eco community near Coffs Harbour, but that venue wasn't available this year. Bent's Basin is a state conservation area with a large park, camp sites, and an education centre (basically a large hall) where we did our drumming and dancing.

Because Bent's Basin is twelve hour's drive from Brisbane, I wasn't planning to attend—too far to drive and, because of the camping-only accommodation, pretty much impossible to do by flying. Fortunately, Matt, a drumming mate of mine, rang a few days before the camp and offered to pick me up from Sydney airport and let me sleep in his van, so I decided to attend on short notice.

The camp ran from Monday to Thursday. Only four days this time instead of the usual seven, mostly due to the change of venue. (Quite a number of people had already bought tickets to the Bellingen Carnival, w...

[ Continued ]

The waters in Brisbane have mostly receded, but there are still many places that are inaccessible. I went to help friends of mine yesterday in one of the flood-affected areas. They were the lucky ones, living in a high-set house. They had three feet of water under the house and over their entire block. Despite the relatively mild flooding they experienced, the devastation is incredible. Everything is caked with mud, up to a foot deep in places. The smell is overwhelming: not only mud and rotting plant material, but sewage that got pushed out of drains and toilets during the flood. I saw many houses that were far worse off in the same area, some of them inundated to the roof line. People living in these houses have lost absolutely everything.

Traffic is chaotic with many roads closed. Those roads that are passable are covered in mud up to a foot deep. Driving along a flooded road, there are endless piles of destroyed household goods, furniture, clothes, books, and appliances lined up along...

[ Continued ]

Well, here I am in Queensland (the Sunshine State), and three quarters of the state have been declared a disaster area. The recent floods are the worst natural disaster in Australia's history (in extent, not in terms of loss of life fortunately).

Queensland is a large state. To give you an idea how large, take Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana. All together, they are not quite as large as Queensland. You need to add Massachusetts and Connecticut to make up the difference. Or, if you want to put it differently, Queensland is has almost exactly 20% of the land area of the entire United States. Three quarters of that are flooded or severely affected by flood.

Queensland has experienced very serious losses of crops and livestock. Infrastructure is seriously damaged everywhere. Roads, bridges, water supply, electricity, communications, etc. It is difficult to ensure supply of essential goods to many areas that are cut off by the floods. Supermarkets are low or empty...

[ Continued ]

My belated report from the Bundagen drum and dance camp with Epizo Bangoura…

I drove from Brisbane towards Coffs Harbour on the Saturday, staying with friends overnight near the half-way mark. Not a nice drive because it was pouring with rain. The entire east coast of Australia was covered by dense clouds, and it had been raining steadily for two days already.

On the Sunday morning, I drove through more heavy rain and, having looked at the weather report, which predicted at least another week of more of the same, I decided that I wasn't going to risk staying in a small two-person tent for the whole week without extra protection. So I stopped at a camping store in Coffs Harbour and bought a 4x5m tarp, six poles, rope, and pegs to provide some additional protection from the rain. It set me back almost $200 but, by the end of the week, I was glad I did it…

When I got to Bundagen, mos...

[ Continued ]

Final day of the camp, with one rehearsal at 2:00pm and then the performance at 5:00pm.

This is the hottest and most humid day I've experienced so far. By 3:00pm, the temperature was at 39C (102F), with humidity at 92%. Truly awful.

We did another run-through of the pyramid, including solos by a few people. You can listen to it in this post. After the rehearsal, we all piled into a bus that took us to the performance venue in the middle of town, a large open-air amphitheatre, large enough to hold probably around 1000 people. We deposited our drums back-stage and then had about 1.5 hours time for shopping and to grab a bite to eat.

Several groups performed prior to the pyramid (which was the final act), including a group from India, Japanese Kodo drummers, and the Lila Drum Ensemble. When we finally went on stage, temperature was still in the...

[ Continued ]