Skip to content →

Dusk, Okonjima, with musical bonus (#9 in Namibia single-image series)

 

Day becoming night – or vice versa – is especially beautiful in an arid or semi-arid region where edifices and artificial lighting are nowhere visible, or barely present.

Namibia has a great many such places.

Photo is copyright Doug Spencer, taken at 7.17 pm on 04 November 2022.

The vantage point was a low hill in Okonjima, central Namibia; our little party was there enjoying a “sundowner”, after an unforgettable encounter with a leopard.

Eventually, both of those experiences will be further explored in multi-image posts.

Musical bonus:

It is not Namibian, nor an intentional evocation of day becoming night, but Cinquante Six (aka 56) is, I think, a perfect accompaniment to day’s end in Okonjima.

The late great Malian songster-guitarist Ali Farka Toure (1939-2006) first recorded it on his 1992 album The Source.

That performance is still one of the loveliest, most uncanny fingerstyle guitar solos I have ever heard; although the composition was credited to him, Ali Farka Toure in fact based it on a traditional song from Guinea.

Not coincidentally, 1956 (‘56/cinquante six) was the year that France granted a degree of autonomy to Mali. Full independence arrived four years later.

Ali Farka often played Cinquante Six; in 2005, well aware that he was terminally ill, he and  his friend/mutual admirer/compatriot kora virtuoso Toumani Diabate recorded this sublime  version for their final duo album, issued in 2010.

 

 

Published in 'non-western' musics, aka 'world music' Americas and Eurasia and Africa instrumental music music nature and travel photographs

One Comment

  1. Geraldine Geraldine

    Beautiful!

Comments are closed.