“When I close my eyes, I can still see the children bathing along the Niger River, splashing and playing with the lambs and calves in the late afternoon,” says Omar Ka. Although the Senegalese musician has been living in Holland for the past thirteen years, this childhood image doesn’t let go of him.

Today Omar Ka (1973) is standing on a very different riverside, on the shores of the port city of Rotterdam. From his new home, he has been working on a music career for more than a decade. With his Fula Band the singer and multi-instrumentalist blends traditional Fulani melodies with urban mbalax, reggae and funk. In collaboration with flutist Mark Alban Lotz he released an internationally acclaimed album last year, Liingu, mixing jazz, Arabic and Indian music with his own style.

Ka is not only a musical nomad but also a real one: he is a member of the Fulani tribe, or Peul people, from the North West of Africa. To avoid a mix up he explains: “The Peul are divided into half a dozen ethnic branches; amongst them are the Wolof, who are farmers, the Toucouleur, who are fishermen and tradesmen and the Woodabe, who live as nomadic herdsmen, just like us. All different ethnicities and purposes, but still the same tribe.” Fulani dress similar to the better-known Touaregs, covered head to toe against cold and heat.

Though a nomad, Omar Ka wasn’t born ‘on the road’ but in a small village in the north of Senegal, named Khourouf. “It was the place where the elderly members of the tribe used to stay when they were too old to travel with the herds, and where pregnant women waited for childbirth.” When someone died during travel, that person was immediately buried. “Carrying a decomposing body for weeks is impossible. They put him in the ground and plant a tree there as a landmark. Of course the relatives in Khourouf never saw their loved ones again.”

Although his parents sent him to Koran-school in Dakar to learn how to read and write, Omar reintegrated into the nomadic existence at the age of nine and started travelling around with his voluminous cattle and family. “We had hundreds of animals for every duty: cows, sheep, goats, horses, donkeys for carrying stuff, and dogs for protection. Besides Senegal, we travelled through Mali, Niger, Guinée, Angola and Burkina Faso. We used to move with the seasons to the best pastures.”

In the evening, after a long day of trekking with the herds, they would make a campfire, sit around it and make music. “That ritual is called Soruuna. It’s is a precious time, as they love to discuss the experiences of their lives just as any traveller does. After singing around the fire they go to sleep. One of my records is called Soruuna, because that’s what I try to do as well: learn from life and share it with others.”

According to him, Omar is the only Fula in Holland, but he surrounds himself with Senegalese friends at his home where there is always African food on the menu. “Normally I cook much better than this,” he smiles modestly, while a group of friends and guests attack the tasty meat and rice stew. “Back then we ate couscous everyday, boiled in milk with special herbs, sometimes with chicken. In the afternoon we would eat dried meat with a glass of tea. Green tea, or chai as they call it, is for the Fula like coffee for the French.”

Talking about the food of his youth takes him back again to the days when he was living closely with the animals in harsh conditions. “Nature is everywhere in the nomadic existence in West Africa, and the lives of the Fulani are completely intertwined with it. For example, orphan children were fed with cow-milk. Those children had a special bond with the calves that drank the same milk; they were like half brothers. Some of them didn’t even eat cow meat throughout their whole lives,” Ka recalls.

For the Fula’s, nature is the answer to every question. “When people are sick, they believe that walking through the clouds of dust that the cows leave behind will heal them. When a snake bites, the medicine man rubs a mix of herbs and plants into the wound. People are very superstitious back there. They believe clapping your hands after sunset near the cows brings bad luck. It’s also bad luck to hit a cow after sunset. Why? I don’t know. Probably because someone hit a cow after dark once and the cow died,” he laughs.

Holland
After a few years in Dakar trying to get his musical career off the ground, he decided to expand his horizon and make the big step to Europe. In 1995 he arrived in Holland. “It was a Sunday morning, the cities were silent and the streets were completely deserted. All the houses were closed; I was amazed to discover there was no life at all. It was like those zombie movies. The thing that surprised me most, though, was that there were no pedestrians walking along the highway, like in Africa.”

Soon he started adapting to the Dutch way of life, and he discovered something called ‘stress’. “Until I came here, I had no idea what the word meant. But everyone here seems to be stressed.” He realised the difference between his nomadic life West Africa and his ‘nomadism’ in Rotterdam. “Here, you don’t live for your own survival, but for the survival of the whole society. That’s not always a good thing: we are slaves of the system. With our taxes we pay for things we may be against, such as the army. American people even paid for the moon landing!”

Luckily, he had his music. “Through music I started making friends with fellow musicians and listeners. Music became my passport.” His Fula Band started to achieve fame and Omar played at big festivals like Music Meeting, Dunya and even during the Night of Tiësto for 25.000 people in Arnhem. His music also allows him to make the statements he wants to make. “Most musicians from my region only sing about kings, empires and old dynasties. That’s nice, but has nothing to do with the problems of the world today.”

Ka has lyrics about Darfur, about U.S. politics and immigration, one of the most harrowing problems of West Africa. “Now, with the climatic change, the Niger River is almost dry. What I told you before about children drinking cow milk, that’s not possible now, because there’s not enough milk anymore. The Fulani are forced to go to the city and sell coconuts or belts and watches that the Chinese offer them.” According to the Senegalese ministry of health his birthplace Khourouf only has 19 inhabitants left at this moment.

Still, he can’t help but sing about African nature and his roots. “On the Liingu album there is a song called Niwano, where I play the guitar and sing. The lyrics go like this: ‘When the mama cow is calling to the baby cow from far away, give the calabash to the one who is going to get the milk.’ Because when the herds used to come back after a long day of pasting, the cows would call their calves and the calves would call back. It’s a wonderful sound, which I imitate in this song.”

Fulani is a beautiful language that uses a lot of metaphors. “When I sing about thunder, lightning and rain, I say: “The skinny lady is running on the road down to the green river. In the morning there will be enough for everyone.” By that I mean that the raindrops are falling on the road and into the river, and that in the morning everything will be green, nutritious and moist.”

Survival
Ka misses the pureness of his childhood life. “But I couldn’t live there anymore. The people of my tribe are really innocent. They think, for example, that all white men speak French - because of their experience with the French colonists. When I visited them once with a Dutch friend who only spoke English, they thought he was the devil. They didn’t want him there.”

“They also don’t believe that environmental problems are caused by humans, they think it is a curse from God. They hate plastics, because when the animals eat it, they die. When an animal has swallowed a piece of plastic, they feel where it’s located in their bellies and they burn that spot with a hot iron, to try to get it out. They are very superstitious; when they arrive at one place, they draw a star of David in the sand, to ban the evil forces.”

“All they do is herd cattle, play the violin and sing at the fire in the evening, go to sleep and do exactly the same every day. I demand a little bit more from life. They can’t really have a conversation about anything else but animals, the weather and food.”

The innocence of the Fulani is also a problem for their survival, Ka thinks. “They are so humble that they are called the bush people, and are being discriminated. In the past, they used to be able to cross all borders, looking for green pastures for their flock. Now they are being stopped at borders because they don’t have passports. Only when some politician is running an election, they bribe them with ID-cards, money and food. But the Fulani have always stood outside of society. Politicians take advantage of them now, and keep them uneducated.”

“Maybe it’s a good life for them,” he says, “but not for me. The more you know about the world, the more you destroy yourself with knowledge, bad habits like smoking, etcetera. I couldn’t go back to innocence. I don’t say that this is a better life. With all this development we have here in the West, people forget to think for themselves. With GPS, you forget how to drive by yourself. With mobile phones, you don’t need to remember the numbers. All in all: with all this technology, you forget to remember.”

One thing Ka still doesn’t really understand is Dutch politics. “Sometimes I can be really simple as well. Because I see that the politicians here want more houses, more roads, more everything. Then I think: why broaden the roads even more? If you use that land to plant paprika’s or other vegetables, than you don’t need the road anymore get them from somewhere else and transport them here.”

In the end, for Ka nature will always have the last say. “Look at China. They are violating human rights. And now there’s a big earthquake. I don’t think it’s a punishment from God, like my family would think, but it is nature’s way of saying: you can’t mess with me. I will always be the boss.” He smiles, and lights another cigarette.

Dit stuk is een bijdrage aan het boek Waacs goes Camping dat onlangs is verschenen.