On July 31, the musical duo Comorian took the phase at Peter Gabriel’s WOMAD Festival — for the previous 40 yrs a showcase for “environment songs” stars as well as lesser identified worldwide musicians. (WOMAD stands for “Globe of Tunes, Arts and Dance.”)
This yr headliners involved Benin’s multi-Grammy winner Angélique Kidjo, octogenarian Brazilian legend Gilberto Gil and the wild card alternative of Oklahoma City’s The Flaming Lips.
Comorian’s two customers, M’madi Djibaba, 59, and Soubi Attoumane, 69, grew to become the 1st musicians from Comoros to at any time seem at WOMAD. An audience of hundreds listened to their original tracks with ear-catching titles: “The Devil Isn’t going to Eat Papaya, He Eats Hearth” and “My Good friends Went Abroad & Were Swallowed by the Waves.” Just after singing and actively playing an hour-extended established of haunting acoustic audio on handmade string instruments, the team attained two lengthy standing ovations and an encore.
But the duo pretty much failed to make it to the stage. The motive: It was just about unachievable to attain visas to vacation from their African island country to the U.K.
Their debut album is referred to as “We are an island, but we are not on your own” — which I manufactured in 2019. But when it arrived to obtaining a visa, they reported they usually did sense as if they had been “by yourself” in their struggle with forms.
Comoros is positioned off the southeast coastline of Africa. It has a population of all-around 850,000 people today. The primary island, Grande Comore, is a mere 396 square miles (a bit more compact than Rome, about a 3rd larger than New York Metropolis). It’s a nation that many people aren’t familiar with. The most common reaction I’ve obtained when speaking about Comoros around the years — even from world songs experts— just isn’t just “The place is it?” but “What is it?”
With few airways providing flights to Comoros and just about none undertaking so day-to-day, it truly is reasonable to say that Comoros is not precisely a travel hub.
The country gained independence from France in 1975 and now only six nations manage embassies there (China, France, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, United Arab Emirates). As is the scenario for quite a few lesser and a lot less economically advantaged nations, other international locations usually decide to not maintain whole-time diplomatic missions. So a Comorian citizen typically will have to initially vacation to a 3rd obtainable country — these kinds of as Mauritius or Kenya — that hosts visa places of work wherever Comorian citizens can utilize.
/ Marilena Umuhoza Delli
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Marilena Umuhoza Delli
For the Comorian duo, the route to the U.K. first demanded a 2-hour flight to Tanzania to file for a British visa. Neither male experienced frequented before, and they failed to converse any of the community languages. They picked Tanzania considering that the U.K. Immigration satellite place of work in that country’s biggest town, Dar es Salaam, was the only 1 they could identify in eastern or southern Africa where by they could implement for the vital visa for the goal region and pay out an extra Extra Worth Service cost so they wouldn’t have to hand in excess of their passports all through the software interval. This option enabled them to fly back again house to Comoros after the visa appointment instead than remaining stranded overseas as they awaited a selection.
There was a good deal of prep. The U.K. visa software involved submitting a 66-web page application. The flights to Tanzania essential not only the airfare but the further charge of taking PCR assessments for both flights — going and returning — to establish they did not have COVID (even however each guys ended up completely vaccinated). Then immediately after traveling back again to Comoros, they had been required to straight away ship their passports back to the visa business in Tanzania (with the quickest “specific” courier getting 5 days) whilst awaiting a verdict.
Right after extra than two months of suspense, the visas had been accredited mere days prior to their scheduled flight. Nonetheless they continue to experienced to get their passports again in time to fly out of Comoros.
Unable to journey without having their passports, M’madi and Soubi luckily had a close friend named Toimimou who was keen to fly to Tanzania and wait at a lodge in the hope that the passports would get there. Soon after a few of days he bought the paperwork and took the first flight back again to Comoros, handing the passports off to the musicians at Moroni Hahaya Worldwide Airport with just several hours to spare in advance of their scheduled flight to the U.K.
The sort of visa marathon confronted by Comorian is considerably from an anomaly for musicians. I have worked with artists from South Sudan, Sao Tome, Djibouti and Suriname who have experienced identical trials because of to their geopolitical isolation, producing it even additional hard for these non-English talking musical artists to access a broader viewers.
And it’s not just individuals in the arts who deal with visa hurdles. Equivalent tales have been shared by pros in business enterprise, athletics, education and as NPR reported last month, health and science.
Irrespective of all the visa turmoil, the two musicians from the island country shined at WOMAD. Longtime festivalgoer Basil Hopper, 51, reported Comorian’s established was “one of the most beautiful, heartfelt, authentic performances I have ever observed.”
Following the display, M’madi beamed backstage. “I just want to share my audio with the entire world and celebrate my state,” he told me. “I would by no means go away Comoros. I really don’t require to vacation abroad to know how stunning and specific Comoros is. Comoros is my home. I am proud to be Comorian. I’d under no circumstances want to dwell any where else.”
Ian Brennan is Grammy-successful music producer (Zomba Jail Venture, Tinariwen, The Good Types [Rwanda], Witch Camp [Ghana]) who in the previous ten years has recorded in the area forty information by intercontinental artists across five continents (Africa, Europe, North The us, South America, Asia). He is the writer of seven publications and his newest, Muse-$ick: a music manifesto in fifty-nine notes, was printed last drop by Oakland‘s PM Push. 
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