KeruBanda

The whole day long we were anxiously looking forward to the concert of KeruBanda. When we eventually decided to take a shower in the less than appealing bathroom (I even doubted that I would get cleaner out of it then when I got in it) we heard some music playing and figured that they had started already at 8 o'clock as displayed on the banners all over the town. As we were preparing ourselves as quickly as we could, a Dominican guy with an American Nationality told us there wasn't anyone there yet and that the music we heard was just a DJ playing. With a sigh
of relief we figured we could relax a little more. When we eventually showed up in the center of the village around nine-ish, we discovered that the gig was actually taking place inside a new club in Mimey, that had booked KeruBanda as their opening spectacle.
The guards at the door told us that the concert was about to start around 10, so around 20 past
ten we entered the club. It was a very fancy club according to Dominican standards, which we noticed because a lot of expensive cars with people in expensive suits showed up. Most of the tables in the club were reserved and some of them had a box with a bottle of Jack Daniels waiting to be consumed. We were directed to a tiny little plastic table with tiny little chairs at the side of the club. They played all kinds of loud music (Dominicans don't seem to make the connection of their country-wide hearing problems and the loud music they play all the time during all moments of the day), mostly Reggea-Ton, Merengue, Batta-something and sometimes a kind of techno that reminded me of the times shortly after "Bonzai".

Sooi was feeling the vibes and looked like a drifted-loose Kurt Cobain between all these High Class Society Dominicans who looked at him like they never seen anything like it.

Every now and then we went outside for a smoke, because you're not aloud to smoke in airconditioned places.
Dominicans don't smoke a lot and some people even acted annoyed when someone lighted one outside in their vicinity. Lots of people also warned us about the dangers of smoking. (well I'm trying to quit and smoke only three when I'm drinking and Sooi only smokes when on
holidays :-), so we take their advice for real).
Anyway, it's only because of our bad habit that we had the luck to meet one of the singers of the band in person. We were looking from a close distance at a neat van parked right outside the club. It looked like a guagua but then without the broken windows, dents and scratches as usual
and it was also brand new.
As we were admiring this vehicle, a guy came out and we asked were this van was going (we succeeded being understood already after 4 attempts !). It turned out to be the artists tour-bus and the singer's name was something that came close to a poorly
pronounced "Richard". We explained the guy that we came all the way over from Santiago to see the band play. This came across as we had came all the way over from Belgium to see them so the guy promised to give us a free cd. Unfortunately we didn't make it to the end of the concert,
because Sooi was just a little bit (!) drunk and we had to go home early.
Fortunately we managed to get Sooi's trophy which he had been dreaming of since the day we arrived at Mimey, a banner with the name of the band, where they played at and when. Ultimately we'd fancy to have it signed by all members of the band, but we had to be happy with only part one of the plan.