(Sleepless) Night before Christmas 2022

A journey to the Central African Republic, Russia, and Antibes, France

Woke up at 2 am last night - the night before Christmas. Couldn’t fall back to sleep. Read the headline article on NY Times:

Putin Wants Fealty, and He’s Found It in Africa

It was hard to look away. I had no idea that Russian Mercenaries were intervening in the Central African Republic (CAR). I wasn’t familiar with the Wagner Group - a privately run paramilitary group operating in Ukraine and other parts of the world including CAR. Protecting gold and diamond mines. And, according to the article maintaining order in one of the “poorest” countries on earth.

This quote from the article really struck me":

“Wandering around the miserable camp, with its crude latrines and stinking garbage, I thought of the millions of Ukrainians who have fled Russia’s unprovoked war into the arms of a wealthy European continent that thought war was behind it.

No place is immune to the war in Ukraine. But nor, in much of the world, does it take center stage as in the West.

When only 6 percent of rural homes have sanitation and less than half of children have a birth certificate, the suffering of others pales.

The war in Ukraine has changed many things, but not the fact that when people must think of their stomachs, they think of little else.”

I knew very little about CAR.

Population of 5 Million.

14% of the population has access to electricity.

And, bizarrely, earlier this year, CAR became the first country in Africa and only the second in the world to adopt Bitcoin as legal currency. Supposedly, this is due to a focus to get out from under the French CFA - which “was created in 1945 to be the currency of the “French Colonies of Africa,” and with France controlling printing and circulation, the French government effectively still has financial control over almost one million square miles of African land and more than 180 million people. While French officials used to refer to the currency as “an act of generosity to the colonies,” its use is now being fiercely debated.

Here’s the flag:

Continuing to dig in, I could only find a few examples of music from CAR:

1. BAaka music - this looks like some type of presentation for foreigners:

2. Broto Music - A subset of the Banda ethnic group. This is an older recording which features horn like instruments which are made from trunks of special trees which are hollowed out by termites.

Man with horn for playing Broto music.

When I heard the Broto music, I was immediately reminded of the Hatian Rara music in which the Bambu is played to create polyphonic melodies that strike my western musical trained ears as sounding eerie.

The Haitians cut different sizes of Bamboo stalks into these “horn” like instruments.

And finally, here is another example of Banda music with vocals:

3. Banda music

Though New York Times article opened my eyes to what is happening in CAR right now, seeing and hearing examples of this amazing music cheered me up.

I still wasn’t tired, so around 3:00 AM, I noticed a text from a friend with this link dedicated to Miles Davis’ electric period:

Revisiting every Miles Davis live tape from 1969 to 1975 in chronological order.

After reading a few of the reviews and realizing I hadn’t heard the Miles Davis Quintet with (Wayne Shorter, Jack Dejohnette, Dave Holland, and Chick Corea) for a very long time, I dug in. I quickly stumbled on to Jack Dejohnette’s Facebook page and found this gem.

Hearing and seeing Miles, Wayne, and the entire crew made me smile.

This was clearly what I woke up for - the main event. I haven’t heard music like this for a while. Considering this happened 53 years ago and throughout my life I have only experienced music like this live a couple of times, I felt lucky to have landed on this one - albeit at 3 AM on Christmas morning.

It’s life reinforcing, mind relaxing, and entirely inspirational.

Christmas or not, I felt ready to take on another day.