Music and Dancing – our life-savers over the past year

Whilst living in Tanzania, we were delighted to find that Multichoice DSTV, was very much alive and kicking, and probably more easy to navigate in Dar es Salaam, than some places in South Africa. We subscribed with little effort, and could watch most of our favourite shows on a variety of channels. What I did miss sorely though is an Afrikaans channel, especially since my Friday night special was always a long-standing musical quiz show, called “Noot vir Noot”, (to my English readers, “Note by Note”), presented by a hugely popular quiz –master called Johan Stemmet, always wearing elaborately decorated blazers.

Noot vir Noot speletjie (Photo credit: coda)

Basically the contestants get clues to songs, either played by the band or with a few words, and then has to sing along at times. A local singer makes a guest appearance and as I grew up singing to any and every song on the radio, I love being the couch contestant at home. Now Johan has never aged in the South African public’s eye, much like Riaan Cruywagen, a veteran news reader who retired recently after being on the small screen for as long as South Africa has television, being the mid 70’s. An icon for sure!! I remember as a teenager rushing to a more wealthy friend’s house to go see those first few hours of television screening, which included Haas Das se Nuuskas, Bennie Boekwurm, Wielie Walie, Chips and Riaan relating the news of the day. The whole neighbourhood’s poorer kids were gathered on that floor between 6 pm and 7 pm every night. We only got a television set many moons later. And then of course we were glued to shows like Dallas, Murder She Wrote etc.

I knew the South African version of Idols was in progress in South Africa when we left, so imagine my disappointment when I realized it was not available in Tanzania when we got there. I scoured the channels and we found “Strictly Come Dancing”, and it turned out to be our Sunday evening treat – like sinking your teeth into a delectable sweet.

We made 100% sure we did not miss a week, and the bug bit so hard that we felt like getting up and dancing as well. Our bedroom was ballroom size, and soon we starting rolling up the rug for a dancing date every night. I would put my laptop on the bed, insert a good old favourite like ABBA, and the fun started. We laughed, danced, got fitter whilst sweating buckets full in the humid climate of living on the equator, often falling into each other’s arms lovingly at the end of a dance session, and loved every moment of it!!

We’ve been back two months now, and for some strange reason, we have just not dance again. We have however had the pleasure of catching the “X-Factor – America”, BUT, the new season of Strictly Come Dancing has just started again, the judges and contestants welcomed in our house like long-lost friends and I’ll bet my bottom dollar, we’ll soon burn up the lounge floor again!!