Disco diva

Great excitement for the last week in our house about the first school disco - last Friday night for katie and her friends. The boys have theirs later in the term. Katie carefully selected her clothes and checked each morning how many days to go till the D.I.S.C.O. Tributes to Donna Summer on our way into school on Friday morning helped get everyone in the mood. Parents are barred from participating and so retreat to the school bar to reminisce about their own school discos - Donna and The BeeGees were big features of mine so I'm feeling particularly nostalgic (and old) this week!

School discos aside, the soundtrack to our lives here is pretty similar to back in the UK. Driving to school gives us plenty of time to listen to music as the kids have all decided that the news is just too grim and "always about bad things happening" so I save my world service fix for my solo car time. Charts pop is ubiquitous and we get regular blasts of Katy Perry, Black Eyed Peas, Rihanna, Maroon 5 et al. Jamie does a very fine comedy Justin Bieber impression - there is complete consensus amongst the boys in his class that JB is rubbish, whatever the girls think.

But we get the odd splash of something different for our ears. The weekly school assembly on Fridays starts with the Kenyan National Anthem, although having experienced the school singing it when I went to Matthew's work share I'm none the wiser on tune or lyrics. I'm trying to broaden our listening options via the radio too. Africa World Service always has a featured regional artist or group playing a few tracks in the morning and I'm adding any I like to my Spotify playlists. A Zimbabwean singer called Prudence was a particularly striking feature. We are all agreed that the Swahili track which heavily samples Coldplay's Paradise isn't going anywhere near the playlist.

Friends and family are also making their contribution to our soundtrack. We went to a very lovely choral performance of St Matthew's passion at Easter, sung by a group of people we have met here. Jamie continues to enjoy the Toto album he got for Christmas as part of acclimatising the kids for our move, mainly at full volume in the shower. rains in Africa has been very appropriate for the last month or so. Matthew is learning about the tribes of Kenya in his topic this term so is picking up some traditional songs and instruments. Katie is learning the recorder and also invested her pocket money in a small African drum to make sure she can join in too, although I'm not sure that's what I call music!