Candombe in San Telmo

Candombe in San Telmo

Yesterday evening in my favourite suburb in Buenos Aires, a band called “Las lonjas de San Telmo” performed a great Candombe for all the neighbours.

Candombe is a rythm from Uruguay based on African roots, and the location chosen by the drummers to meet (Parque Lezama) is a place were the African slaves used to be brought during the colony period.

More pictures in http://www.flickr.com/photos/candombera/sets/72157603218289366/

Candombe: the best of montevideo

I’m back from Montevideo (Uruguay) today and I’ve found a quiet grey old city. The heat was horrible which didn’t make sightseeing tempting at all. In spite of that, we went for a 2 km walk on Tuesday morning at 10.30 am, and the temperature was 32 degrees.

Walking near the centre, we came across a friend of mine: Noelia. We talked on the phone the day before and were going to meet while we were here in town, but suddenly we just saw her on the street, and she became our heroine, as she took us to her apartment with air cond, she fed us and we stayed there the whole afternoon.

Then we went to see the beach: Pocitos -they said it was the best beach in Montevideo- but it can’t be compared to Sydney’s.

Anyway it was almost 40 degrees, so I was grateful to swim (kind of) in the Rio de la Plata (Silver river) beach.

But the truth is that I only came to visit Montevideo because I was interested in Candombe.

Candombe is an Afro-Uruguayan manifestation typical of the local culture. It includes drumming, singing and dancing.

The rhythm was originated during colonial time, among the African slaves that were taken to Uruguay coast.

We went to see a show and it was great, colourful and fun. The big Carnival parade starts in February, with lots of celebrations in the streets. I’ll be there one day.

I’m not an expert in the subject, but you can find more about Candombe here:

http://www.eltoquedecandombe.com.ar/

Montevideo has also beautiful sunsets.

People gather near the river (Rio de la Plata) to fish, chat, drink mate and watch the sunset.

Uruguayans are very polite and humble people. That’s the main difference with the argies (sorry to say…) we are not as nice as they are.

But we are back to Buenos Aires and luckily the temperatures have dropped a little bit.

Here’s a Buenos Aires view from the plane. This is the endless city with the Rio de la Plata (same river we share with Uruguay).

We’ll be here for the next 2 weeks, so keep and eye on the blog to read more stories from the Rio de la Plata.

As a kid I wanted to be a Candombe dancer

Hi everyone!

Well, here I am… it took a long time to get here.
I wanted to have a blog, but wasn’t sure about the language problem… finally I decided to write in English and may be a couple of stories deserve a Spanish translation too.

If you are wondering about the name “Candombera” is related to Candombe. I am lazy to explain, so I searched for it in Wikipedia and it says:
Candombe is a drum-based musical style of Uruguay. Candombe originated among the Afro-Uruguayan population of Montevideo and is based on Bantu AfricanEuropean influence and touches of Tango.

Got it? I’d better post a video about it.

Candombe is part of my childhood memories, as my grandma used to sing these songs to me.

May be this is enough for a start! I’ll be posting more stuff here soon.

Enjoy your visit and tell me something…

Cheers

Hola a todos!

Bueno aca estoy… me llevo un largo tiempo llegar hasta aqui.

Siempre quise tener un blog, pero no estaba segura acerca del idioma… finalmente me decidi a escribir en ingles y quizas un par de historias merezcan una traduccion al español. (eso si, no esperen acentos porque es complicado en este teclado).

Los hispano parlantes no necesitan una explicacion sobre que es Candombe, asi que voy a ahorrarme traducir este parrafo.

Candome forma parte de mis recuerdos de infancia (psicoanalizados comenten tranquilos). Mi abuela solia cantarme candombes.

Creo que esto es suficiente para empezar! Voy a ir actualizando de a poco este espacio.

Disfruten la visita y cuentenme algo…

Saludos

This is candombe