Bushfire: Bring Your Fire

May 31^st – June 2^nd, 2013

The fire was for sure brought this weekend at Bushfire!!

Bushfire Music Festival is one of the greatest things about serving in Swaziland.  For those who don’t remember by blog from last year, it is a three-day call to action.  Through celebrating the arts: music, written word, dance, drama, the festival is meant to inspire, encourage, and celebrate efforts in development, education, and outreach to make communities a better place to live.

I decided to camp on the festival grounds this year with the majority of the other PCVs from Swaziland and a group of PCVs from Mozambique.  It was so much fun.  Three days of awesome music and artists representing Africa, South America, and Europe, great food from all over the world, and of course access to buying goods from all the craft stands representing the fair trade handicraft market here in Swaziland.  The refugee camp I have worked with in the past was represented in the food court.  They had a booth that my fellow PCVs Ryan and Addy helped them organize and they sold native food from Rwanda, Burundi, and Somalia. It was awesome and their stand was very popular.

My favorite acts over the three days were Toya DeLazy (popular SA pop artist), Jeremy Loops, The Muffins (an urban indie jazz band), The soil (acapella group), and Guy Buttery (acoustic guitarist).  There was also a really impressive string quartet from Austria that accompanied a Mozambique band mixing Classical and African rhythms.



Bushfire Stage by Day



If anyone is in Southern Africa in late May/early June, Bushfire is a must.  One of my favorite weekends!!  Late nights dancing, lazy days sitting listening to music, good food, good friends, can’t get better than that. 

For more info check out their website at www.bushfire.co.za



bring your fire!