the trip to Balandougou

[dununbabe]

hi all,
someone was asking a question about the trip with Mamady on other thread, so to keep it "on topic" I decided to start a new thread.
Mamady's mission was to show the people in the villages the value of their musical tradition in the world today. Many of the traditional rhythms are not played anymore, and some, have never even been heard of by the youth.
feel free to ask questions you may have.
please make a note that Mamady has 3 week workshops in the capital of Guinea every winter. This is one trip that will change your life AND your djembe playing! I highly recommend it.

[bubudi]

hey dununbabe, you said in the other thread that although balandugu is only 7km from the mali border, it was necessary to travel from conakry. what was the reason for this? i have talked to people who crossed the mali/guinea border and wasn't aware of any problems there.

i also heard that balandougou is the place where the ruler of manding, sundiata keita was buried. has anyone from balandougou ever mentioned this?

[Dugafola]

you can travel down from the Mali side no problem. the only thing you have to deal with is the sketchy border and having your papers/visas in order.

MK probably does it from CKY because that's where he's based while he's in guinea and that's where his workshop was.

mansa camio usually flies into Bamako and comes down that way.

couldn't make the Balandougou trip, but i've done a workshop with Mamady over there and spent a lot of time with his family my past trip. definitely worth it imo.

[dununbabe]

Hi everyone......
as you can imagine by my lack of response to anyone (yet) life has been incredibly busy. I will do my best to answer soon!