Small World Festival (20th May – 27th May 2009)

(This album says more than the vids)

20/05/09 Wednesday – Thomas gets the bike. Thank god its so much lighter. Pack up. Get bike repaired. G and I leave. Train to Liverpool Street. Bike to London Bridge. Train to Headcorn and G gets her drink on in the train. Go to a pub that stopped serving food for refurbishing so one lady tells us it’s ok to get some food and eat on the outside benches. Get food and another bully lady makes us eat across the road by the graveyard. Talking about we’re going upscale. Yeah with that attitude you’re up something alright. G jokes about the ‘upscale’ bit lol. Bike to the location and first thing we come across is a big fully black cat. So cuddly! Look for Hippie Steve coz we’re pitching tent next to him instead of with the crew. Steve was there stilling outside the sauna tent all naked. Note: So I made sure I didn’t sit where he did… you know just to make sure I didn’t sit on his skidmarks. We’re a few days early so it’s mostly the party tents and crew tents which are up. Set up shop and chill. Steve has brought his bubble machines so sunsets were always amazing as you see silhouettes of kids playing with the bubbles in the sunset. Note: Everyone is so beautiful. You know like in city it’s usually this ones hot or that one’s sexy. Here they did have hints of that but it was more of pure beauty. Inner and outer. The girls especially… they were so so beautiful and pretty and definitely hippie. Well beautiful and pretty… with armpit hair :o| Make rounds and check out the other tents. Some were so pimped out. My fav was Larry’s Lounge coz it it was huge, mattresses inside, COUCHES, piano. And outside more sofas, foosball table, cornetto stand display oh and they were selling funky clothes too. Take a nap. We were working with the Green Godess crew so have a meeting. I was warned about boss lady Shona’s harshness but she was cool. Meet the crew. Amy was definitely the coolest. She was like a dude. Plays drums and banjo/guitar/bouzouki. There was Liz calligraphy and cafeteria, Naomi on the calligraphy, face painting and cafeteria (Liz’s daughter), R cafeteria fine litter picking and drawing, Charlie cafeteria guitar and poi, Kim the main litter guy, Anton litter and attitude, Carl something something and lil Nairan (Liz’s son). Towards the end of the week lot more folks joined our crew. Get instructions. Chill. Fall asleep to the sounds of a Djembe being played very well! Our tents were located perfectly across the circle where the main tents were and then there was the sacred circle that gave us just enough distance so the gigs wont be too loud. R note: I usually look at what I don’t like in a girl first and R was tall and thin plus she speaks really low. And of course the whole issue with the pits. Well it started out like that.

21/05/09 Thursday – Start litter picking and washing. The skies were amazing. Remote control planes flying around. Hot air balloons passing by, etc. Lunch. More pretty, beautiful girls with hairy pits!!! More litter picking. Make stuff with playdough with R and Nairan. Playdough smells so sexy like cake batter… but it tastes like nothing. Dinner at the Inner Circle tent were we’ll be exchanging our meal tickets for excellent food and be entertained by some kinda act. This time it was poetry. Note: Small World festival is pure veg so any meat would be brought in by the person and cooked themselves. Now the Sacred Circle was a circle with stones placed in places… 4 posts around and a stone mushroom. Being a loner I chilled out there and for some reason placed a ring next to the mushroom which was made of sheep wool or whatever it was stuck to the benches. As it got busy the Sacred Circle got more decorations, more folks doing yoga and meditating etc. Mini issue: Picture time… grrrr… why pose man! Whats with all these faces smiling at the camera!? Oh and another issue is I took so many pics but I’m only in one… bit of a bummer but hey… most of the magic that happened could not be captured by the pics, vids and audios I took. Back to Inner Circle tent for dinner, some pub quiz was going on. I was too distracted by the stew and dumplings. Green Godess has it’s opening ceremony. Amy does her thing on the Bouzouki. Chill out. Note: Sleeping in the tent is wicked for observation. I overhead this boy and girl talking about ‘my friends say we have to kiss’. ‘Ok lets go over there’. The age groups made it even more magical coz the kids had their section with boats and hulahoops and all. The teens were near the toilets mostly where the swings were and if not there they had their own Teen tent. R note: Her voice captivates me first. As in when I can hear her it’s so soothing. Amy C-blocks.

22/05/09 Friday – Bike to Headcorn for shopping and some good ol junk. Note: Some of these folks have wicked names like Sunshine, Sky, Mushroom… you know… hippie names. Mushroom had her wishing tree tent where folks would stick their wishes on this lit up tree. Pretty funky. Lunch. Usual (Usual from here on means Litter picking with G… mostly). I take went to chill in Larry’s Lounge but ended up having a nap to folks playing piano and exchanging jokes etc. It was so wicked like random people just come into random peoples tents and hit it off. Just like kids. It was about making friends and friendship and all those good things. Oh and jam sessions all over the place. Someone with a drum will spot someone with a guitar and there you have it… jam session!! I met this couple that were into bhajans right opposite my tent so we had a satsang. Later on I’d keep missing our sessions coz when they were free I had to do my shift or eat or something. Oh man… the crowds started coming in. So many more things going on. More tents offering more services. Now G and I were chilling in the Sacred Circle next to the Satsang couple tent and these kids come to the edge of the circle, facing the road and one kid on the guitar starts licking out rock anthem choons and Salt and Peppa’s Push It. MAGIC!!! Like everyone had some kinda skill. I’ll come to that later. Now that it’s busy time a barrier is made in the main centre where there are 3 bonfires and folks do all kinda acts from fire poi, fire stick juggling, knife acts, belly dance, etc. Charlie had mad skills in the fire poi juggling thing. Janice joins us. Go to the cinema tent. Yes there was a cinema too… projected by Apple ;o) Wicked documentary called The Power of the Community. About how USA cut Cuba off petroleum. Like if ships docked in Cuba they could not dock in USA till after 6 months. How Cuba started out making lil farms everywhere, got cattle and ploughs etc and now how their scientists are exported for their expertise in chemical free farming etc. R note: Her accent catches my attention this time. I’m like wow she’s pretty easy on the ears.

23/05/09 Saturday – Usual. Sooo many more tents. Paragliders above. Usual. See half a movie at the cinema. Darwins Nightmare or something about how introducing Perch to the Nile changed so much. It was in Swahili so I was asked to stick around and translate till it was just me left lol. It was kinda boring and slow. Now that skills bit I was talking about. Here we have a dad chilling at the Tribal Voices tent giving out his poetry while his teen son is juggling fire poi for the crowds in the main circle. It was like everyone brought something to the table. R note: As we spend more time together I get to do my fav thing… analyse features and R is easy on the eyes too. I’m starting to see her as this hippie angel. LMAO.

24/05/09 Sunday – Usual. Waited 2 hours to be served lunch so Shona had a word with the folks so they’d keep crew food to the side. Oh and Anton had issues with Shona. It was more of a loner than I was. Now he was meant to be taking care of Small World’s tent but we had to do it. My allotted tent was Triban. Do my shift at the Green Godess cafeteria. They serve only Fair Trade! Chill in the sauna while this couple play and sing and the dude gives his strings to the Sauna tent dude. That’s the other thing… even without paying customers all of these people were sustaining each other. Giving what they got. It was basically a hippie village. Note: Sunburn and sauna don’t go together. Bigup: Madhu unc and Neha… the shades with changeable lenses were perfect. Bike to Headcorn in the sunset. Wow… see to get to the festivals you have to pass all these fields with sheep, cows, plants… so many fields and as you pass one of them you get an aroma of ambrosia. The best I can describe this week was Romantic… sooo damn romantic and the Nature is your valentine. Warming you up at noon, cooling you in the evening. Freezing your ass past midnight! Anyway so shopping and stuff. I’d usually sleep early and not party to hard coz of work. Trust me, its funny! Oh yeah I kept my eye on the Satsang couple coz they were eating and soon as they finished I’m like… it’s time. They’re like we gotta do our washing but we’ll give you one bhajan. Thanx. Over to the cinema. It was so packed with kids coz The Incredibles was on. Back to my tent, fall asleep to this really amazing Rasta MC Beatboxer kinda act. Viv – This dude has the essence of hiphop. Reminder: Look out for Joe Driscoll or Paradox… he’s one of them. R note: Now I’m actually admiring her. Enjoying the time we spend as long as she speaks loud enough or not at all.

Origin Myth – Joe Driscoll

25/05/09 Monday – Rain. Lovely rain but I aint going out till it warms up. At least we got help with the litter this time. Usually it was like tie up the full ones and carry them back to their section. Plastic, cans, bottles, other, compost, raw. And with the wheelbarrow we could only take 3 at a time. Big up Tim for the help too… he was Stewarding but decided to help us during his lunch break. It was the best weather today coz the heat was still there, the rain was here and there and … it was great. Play catch with Nairan. Cara joins us. Oh yeah there was lots of naked kids roaming about and I was like I wish I could do that. Some folks did. I’d taken the Borat mankini along too! Oh well there is another Small World festi in August so yay! Nairan brings balloons. He was soooo cute man. He started tiring me so I took him and Cara over to the bubbles and Steve. Steve even stressed up as Willy Wonka once, walking down the road with his bubbles and kids flocking around him. Do my cafeteria shift… I was getting hungry so grab my food and it went like this. Nairan still wanted to play with the balloons just wanted me to blow them up so that he could let them zip around the tent. So I’d blow up the balloon while he’d take a bite of my pasta, then he’d go chase around the balloon so I’d take my bites… rinse and repeat. Tents have reduced now but people are still partying hard. Shrooms to try… they didn’t taste as bad as I though and the effect was not all that… colours were just brighter and I was happy and smiley till some rowdy f*** started drama. He even came to the Inner Circle tent and got kinda racial with the black dude doing his spoken word poetry. And what amazing spoken word poetry it was… dude had mad skills I forgot I was eating for a moment. Busiest day, most productive, most fun and best weather and of course the bit of drama to make it complete. Sleep to the sound of the drizzle kissing my tent and some kids were awake late with Steve trying to make the bubbles survive in the drizzle. By now my hips were soar coz of sleeping on the ground and stitching on my jeans didn’t help. R note: BTW from day one we were getting C-blocked and so I’ve not really done my bit. I realize this coz we didn’t chill at all today… maybe for a quick cig or something. Anyway to cut it short thinking of her needy expressions made me wanna be a hero. Must be coz of watching The Incredibles. :oP

26/05/09 Tuesday – Rain! Usual but in the slippery mud. In this case a solid system for work would not work. We’d agree to the best system for the job as and when it called for it. More usual with Tim and we found so much treasure. Folks left tents, mats, I got a foldable chair, tent-pegs (the most valued), beers, etc. Wow another black and white big fluffy furry cat. Kim’s dog Nova was so sweet, she’d follow him everywhere and get worried when she couldn’t see him. Bike to Headcorn again. At one point everything was so beautiful coz folks were shutting up shop and like you see someone playing piano outside with kids playing foosball next to it. The moons crescent looks especially great this evening. It’s basically the last day for many of the crew so we all gather for dinner at the Small World tent. Then for a crew brew in our tent. No more proper lights so R was looking even more angelic. Everyone gathered around with their drink or smoke as Charlie strummed some choons and Nova lying in peace next to him… wish I got that picture but it was too dark and I was using my phone camera. Kim was fiddling about… I think trying to skin up. I was freezing so I was next to the fire. Carl was bringing the jokes. Oh and G has her space blanket so she looked like a jacket potato waiting to be cooked lol. R note: Now we’re really adoring each other. Shona C-blocks her backrub. Then again when I say C-block it wasn’t really like that. It was more of an affection thing than an infatuation thing.

27/05/09 Wednesday – Ah last day… this time it’s fine litter picking with the grabber and all. Gs still sleeping so I do my hours in the rain. She wakes up and has major ass tantrums, some swearing, a little cry and then goes to sleep in Shona’s tent. Poor thing not well so we hook her up with a hotwater bottle and tea. Some bold cat thought she’d stroll past Nova… it was a tense situation but no one was harmed. Pack one time, fine litter pick, pack tent, fine litter pick, help G with her tent, fine litter pick. Ready to go. Goodbyes, money and train station. Come across a granny who shares her life with us. From camping naked till today and sleeping with rifles in Kenya during Jomo Kenyatta’s time and living through the depression with a husband she’d thought of killing and how Scientology is opening her eyes to why things happened to her the way they did etc. G was pretty quiet apart from not approving of Scientology. Way I see it, does not matter what you believe as long as it’d taking you to the check point you want to reach next and you’re not intentionally harming anyone. Even what age you find your path does not matter. Anyway so train to London Bridge, bike to Liverpool Street, train to Forest Gate. G goes home, I go to get some CHICKEN! Thomas’s friend Dalita’s staying over so I just lock myself up in my room with my chicken and laptop. Watch Naruto and comedy… aint checking mail/facebook till tomorrow man. No sign of Tasha so I go look for her and boy was she chuffed. She wont stop purring or moving around and I’m like yo I put the laptop on the side now settle down coz I’m tired! R note: Promise to meet up at the Work House festival.

Notes:
– Small World was definitely the best festi to go to for a first timer. It was all so perfect.

– Big up G for getting me work coz it also meant a wicked story before I stop My Journal, stuff like this makes me keep it going but I’ve not been true to My Journal for a while now with all the censoring and code names/words for things, and anyway it’s fulfilled what it needed to. Time for another change ok!

– When Mushroom and G got stoned it was so funny coz they’d both be rambling on like they’re talking to each other but not listening to each other so speaking at the same time about politics and stuff. Mostly the ‘masis’ would get stoned and talk stuff like that. I had to find folks my own age and interests.

– Solar and wind powered phone chargers. One ‘tent’ was really a colourful dome with a telescope for star gazing.

– Teens roaming around with bongs.

– Ambivalence instead of Ambulance on the Ambulance.

– At one point I was like I can do with this life (apart from sleeping on the ground coz I sleep on my tummy and feels like I’m hugging the planet and coz it’s hard). I’ve been offered Glastonbury but I have an idea of how much more crazier and bigger the festival is so lets see. Might mean more than a month away.

Wooed by the World

Part 2 here

For more info click here – Small World Solar Stage Spring Festival