I was watching zebras drink from a watering hole in the Rwandan wilderness when I turned to my safari guide and asked him to play me his favorite song.
Wherever I go, I collect “song souvenirs.” On one level, it’s an easy way to find common ground with people from other places, but the practice also never fails to firmly embed a place in my mind. Science backs me up, too: A 2015 study published in the neurology journal Brain found that musical memories are so strong, they can even be preserved in patients with advanced Alzheimer’s disease.
On this day, though, I also wanted to lighten the mood. Between sightings in Akagera National Park, my guide, Johnston Mbanzamihigo, had been telling me about his time fighting in the Rwandan Patriotic Front against the perpetrators of the country’s 1994 genocide.
He opened his phone and cued up Ntawamusimbura, a sentimental track sung in Kinyarwanda by the local singer Meddy. It has a lightly autotuned but vulnerable Ed Sheeran-like vibe; the title means “No one can replace her,” Mbanzamihigo translated. As he closed his eyes and swayed with his arms outstretched, I joined him, knowing that every time I heard this song later, it would transport me straight back to this moment on the savanna.
by Jennifer Flowers, Bloomberg | Read more:
Image: Marc Majewski
