Dancing queens

A friend told me the girls here learn to ‘shake their asses’ before they walk. Judging by his girlfriend’s gyrating hips, he was right. He argues that with 14 females to every male here, the girls have to fight hard for their man.

People must eat rhythm for breakfast here; either that or they have more practice because there is music wherever you go. My neighbour was grinding a vegetable yesterday and the children even managed to rap and dance along to the beat. In the same way, a fellow student appears to have an earphone surgically attached to his left ear and he often replies to the teacher’s questions in song.

Rap music is big here, with US ghetto superstars and local born heroes dominating the charts. Arriving for the first time in Angola at 5am, the hip hop next door had not faded and would not for some time.

Women seem particularly sensitive to music here, their bodies, and in particular their behinds, taking on a life on their own. Angolan meringue and semba (very much like Brazilian samba) make them vibrate faster than the household electrical generators. You can tell who is new here by the mixture of expressions- surprise, embarrassment, or in the case of many expat males, delight. Comparing traditional music and dance from the UK with that here, morris dancing has a lot to live up to.