Senegambia Cultural Center

 

Music classes and accommodation at the SCCRE

 

 

The SCCRE (The Senegambia Center for Cultural Research and Education) is a new cultural and
Educational Center located in Mandinary (Gambia, West Africa). Mandinary Village is almost twenty
English miles from Banjul, the Capital of the Gambia. The official opening takes place in July 2006.

 

 

 

The Mission of the Center

 

The mission of SCCRE is to launch a project that will provide the Senegambia young and old community with field
research and documentary training, with the aid of media information technology, to facilitate the documentation
and preservation of the diverse Senegambian Cultural heritage, many of which are rapidly disappearing from
contemporary practice and use. In short, the mission of the Center is to collect, document and preserve all the old
folk string music instruments found in the Senegambian region.

 

The SCCRE has a department that specialises in the construction of all the old folk music string instruments that
relates to the New World banjo. It offers reasonable prices to these instruments to anyone who may want to buy
them from the Center. Also it has a well-educated staff that offers courses on these banjo related instruments like
the Wolof Xhalam, the Jola Akonting, the Manjago Buchundu and the African Riti (African fiddle).

 

 

 Renting (accommodation)

 

 Traditional clay house including;

 

  • a bed with mosquito net
  • meals twice a day (lunch & dinner)
  • outdoor toilet
  • washing of clothes once a week
  • a watchman for security
  • transportation from/to airport

 

 

 is per week $ 250.

 

 

 Renting of clay house without
 food and washing is per week:

 

 

                     $ 200.

 

 

 (The watchman is required)

 

 There are no ordinary showers. Here in the
 forest we use a bucket of water and a cup.

 

 A personal interpreter and guide

 during your stay is per week:

 

                     $ 50.

 Music classes

 

 Lessons in playing any musical
 instrument includes the following;

 

  • the cultural background

          of the particular instrument

 

  • renting of musical instrument

 

  • lessons, playing technique

 

 and is per week (6 days x 4 hours)  $ 300.

 

 For a full course of one month
 (24 days x 4 hours) the price is        $ 700.

 

 

 You will have the best available teachers at each
 instrument providing you a solid musical knowledge.

 

 

 The main courses offered at the SCCRE are:

 

 - The Jola Akonting lute.

 - The Manjago Buchundu lute.

 - The Wolof Xhalam.

 - The Bambara Ngoni.

 - The Fula Hoddu.

 - The African Riti (African fiddle).

 

 

 

 

Field programmes

 

The course activities offer a field programme, which includes visits of all the Akonting sights in the Gambia. The
visits will show how most Jola Akonting players disappeared from these areas, a Jola legend has it that they were
taken by devils. There will be a visit to Hasuka Kanjanka (Casamance), the birthplace of the Jola Akonting and a
trip to James Island where Kunta Kinte was imprisoned. There is also a trip to the main cultural areas Sanyang,
Kotu and Kololi. An English/French-speaking guide will join each trip at no extra cost.

 

 

 

A trip to Kanjanka (3 days) including
transportation, meals and a hotel room.
A minimum of ten persons must partake.

 

A trip to James Island and Banjul
(1 day) including transportation and meals.

 

A trip to Sanyang, Kotu and Kololi
(1 day) including transportation and meals.

 

 

$ 200

 

 

$ 75

 

 

$ 50

 

 

 

 

For more information on The SCCRE cultural

educational programmes, please contact:

 

Daniel Jatta

+46  -86 36 68

My E-mail

 

 

Also visit

 “Akonting Articles”