celebrity sighting

A quick trip to the market with girlfriends to buy some fabric turned out to be the talk of our neighborhood. And in a place where there is a lot of sameness this was pretty exciting!! We spotted Bi. Kidude!!

Ok, so you may be thinking..."ummm who is that?" Arguably one of the most well known people ever to be from our island. She is a famous Taarab singer here. She is also well known by locals for her complete disregard for spheres of life deemed to be "male" like smoking, drinking, and pretty much talking opening about anything she wants! She has created quite a bit of controversy on our island in her time but I think people sorta leave her alone what with being over 100! Seriously a miracle since she smokes like 3 packs a day! Legend has it she once traveled to Europe and refused to wear shoes as she took in the sights of various cities and performed.

I had a short conversation with her in which she grabbed my face and said she was so happy I spoke Kiswahili and that I was welcome here. And of course I had to get one quick pic to up my street cred' in the neighborhood....

You can read a bit about her here and here and there are some amazing scenes of her in this documentary about our island (plus the documentary is awesome!)

So, yeah, Woo-hoo! Celebrity sighting!