THE FOREST VOICES TOUR
diary

FEB 2014

After some intensive fundraising that left us under budget but very much enthused, we were at the beginning of something very exciting - The Forest Voices Tour.

The aim: to take Orchéstre Baka Gbiné, a group of talented Pygmy musicians on tour in an effort to promote and gain insights to their culture and the problems they face.

By touring other Baka villages we hoped to achieve 3 main goals:

1. Knock Orchéstre Baka Gbiné into a tight touring unit
2. Bring together Baka communities both to have fun and to have serious discussion about the problems they face
3. Get Baka to talk on camera so that their views can be heard by people affecting their lives and so giving them a voice

We took with us an assortment of amplifiers, guitars, microphones, cameras and a projector, along with car batteries, solar panels and a small generator to power it all. We packed it into a friendly NGO's 4 wheel drive and set off for Gbiné, a Baka village that owes its existence to the work of Martin Cradick and Su Hart of Baka Beyond, and Andi Main, an English carpenter who lives most of the year in the French Pyrrenees, and the charity they set up, Global Music Exchange.

The Crew - where's Andi?