Mindelo, Cesaria Évora, Tito Paris & my very nice travel & cultural experiences made in Cape Verde (part 2)

 Hi all You readers of my posts. Good news first. Actually I can tell You 3 things today, which I consider very good and highly welcome.

First of all the government of the State of Sao Paulo, where I live and where our beautiful factory is located, has published numbers, which show for the first time since the beginning of the actual Covid-19 pandemia in Brazil a strong reduction of the occupation of the intensive care beds in the hospitals all over our state and also a strong decline of the death rates in the State of Sao Paulo. But we need to be very cautious with the interpretation of these numbers. Covid-19 is a hellish tricky subject and there is definitely no reason for opening champaign bottles in Sao Paulo yet. 

The second good news is, that obviously - according to Oxford Economics - at least the economies in Mexico, Brazil and Peru are picking up again strongly from the setback because of Covid-19, whilst Columbia, Chile and Argentina still continue with reduced economic activities. But - the same as above - this has also to be watched very carefully and without exaggerated optimism. 

And the third good news today is, that it has just been raining where I am living for almost the first time since about 5 months. It`s not that I don`t like dry, sunny days. But the plants in our garden needed urgently some rain and we had a lot of wild fires during the last weeks along the highways and in the green areas in our region.

Having informed You about these 3 good news, I can dedicate now my full attention to continue my yesterday started experience sharing about my travel to Cape Verde. 

As already mentioned I was accomodated in a small, simple but nice, clean and safe hotel in the city Mindelo on the Cape Verdean island Sao Vincente. Beside my 3 months students internship in South Africa during the 80`s, this was actually my first time in an African country. 

One of my first learnings in Mindelo was, that my own biological clock did not work there. Because the local people there were mainly active from 6am to 10am, when I normally was still sleeping or having breakfast and reading newspapers. 

When I used to start activities and go out on the streets, most people - because of the strong heat - had just disappeared and the streets remained almost empty until 5pm, when it soon after started to darken very quickly. 

This was a real challenge, because on one hand I was travelling alone and on the other hand this was - at least during that time still - not a place frequented by many tourists. Thus I had serious difficulties to "kill" the time during the long days. Only a few restaurants were open for lunch and anyhow there were hardly other guests. 

Another problem was, that - against my normal habbits - I had decided to travel to Cape Verde with my Portuguese-Spanish dictionary as the only book in my, anyhow very limited, luggage. And - believe it or not - I could not find any newspapers or books in the few shops there. I think, the only book available for purchase was the Holy Bible, which was not exactly the kind of literature, which I was mainly looking after. 

The only printed material usable for reading which I could find in Mindelo were some quite old and already massively used french newspapers. I discovered these in a French cultural center - let`s be true, it was just a scarcely furnitured room with some old yellowed posters on the walls. 

After nightfall, which started around 6pm, the local people appeared again on the roads, this time in masses. And lots of economical and social activities started. And to meet other people in the restaurants during dinner was much more easy because many famillies and groups of friends came there. 

As the main reason for my travel to Mindelo had been my interest in the beautiful Cape Verdean music, I started to ask several people for indications of the "good" bars, where live music should be presented. But this was quite easy. There were practically only 3 or 4 bars in Mindelo, where this could happen. And I looked them all up during the first nights of my stay there. 

But this became another challenge. Because it was extremely difficult, to figure out information about live music presentations. There was no fix programme. Normally these bars were quite empty. But this could change from one moment to the other and crowds of people fell in. Especially on friday and saturday night.

What I found out was, that You really needed to follow the rumors of the people, although it was never clear, whether these were fundamented or just invented. That was exactly how I - after several unsuccessful nights - had the enormous luck, to assist a totally improvised live show of the great Cape Verdean singer and musician (he plays mainly guitar and bass, but also piano) Tito Paris. 

Tito Paris has been born in Mindelo, but as a young man he had emigrated to Lisbon, Portugal, where he still mainly lives. During his youth he played together with his brothers and his cousin Bau (Rufino Almeida), who has also become very famous as musician later-on. He has toured numerous nations including Portugal, Spain, France (especially Cannes), US (New York, Boston), Canada, England, the Netherlands, Belgium and Norway. 

In 2012 he celebrated 30 years of his career with a huge concert in Rotterdam together with the Metropolitan Orchestra of the Netherlands. On April 8, 2017 he was awarded the rank of Commander of the Portuguese Order of Merit by President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa. And - especially interesting for my Brazilian readers - his album titled "Mim ê Bô" features the special presentation of the former "King of Morna" Bana (also a famous Cape Verdean singer) and the Brazilian musician Zeca Baleiro. 

Actually people were telling me since a couple of days, that "on friday evening" Tito Paris would play in one of the bars. But nobody had an idea in which of them and at which hour. But no problem. Just another challenge. Thus I oscillated between the different bars for several hours looking up what was happening there. But nothing indicated that anything really special would happen. In each of the bars a handful of people only. Around midnight some more people showed up, but still no real movement. 

And then around 2am at one certain moment the people were standing up, clapping their hands and jubilating loudly. Tito Paris had entered the bar together with two or three others. His guitar hung over his shoulders. No other instruments, musicians, equipments - nothing. 

This started to become my first real "pocket show". I doubt that there had been more than 50 people in this bar, when Tito Paris started playing. For sure, during the next 2 hours lots more of people dropped in. But it was extremely impressive. Because immediately many other guests conjured some real and improvised intruments and altogether accompanied Tito Paris playing and singing. This was like a familly party. And everybody knew each of the songs. Nothing formal, distant, serious. Unbelievable for me, that such a quite famous artist with international reputation could act in such absolute normality and harmony with the people surrounding him. 

I had a wonderful evening - better: night - and was very glad, that I had been able to realise this so unconcrete and unlikely dream. This has become one of these moments, which I will never ever forget in my live.

Here as an example the video version of his song "Mim Ê Bô":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LPdvCyERDw

And as another sample of Tito`s music a live concert version of his beautiful song "Ña Pretinha":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIsicP4k1ZE

You can only love this music or hate it - there is hardly any option between these two extremes available. 

I`d be curious to receive Your feedback. Let`s meet here in my blog again tomorrow. Enjoy the 2nd half of this wonderful weekend.