Another summer festival in Amsterdam

Looking around, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

Yesterday, there was a Moroccan music festival in Sloterpark, called 7ouma, way out in Amsterdam West. I had arranged to go there with GeertJan, a friend I have recently made here in Amsterdam. We were to meet up, have a coffee, catch a tram and go to take some photos, this being another in a series of festivals we have been having in Amsterdam recently.

Neither of us having much experience of Amsterdam further west than the ring and there being places called Sloten, Nieuwe Sloten, Slotervaart and Sloterdijk and Sloterpark, it was all a bit difficult to know exactly where we should go. I always had the feeling that the number 2 goes out west so we alighted, only to be told that we were on teh wrong tram and that we should pick up the number 7 at Leideseplein, wich we did, after a short wait. The tram was fairly full of Moroccans so we thought we must be onto something. However, most of them had hopped out by the time we had finished with the Kinkerstraat and soon we were into unknown territory beyond the ring road.

Eventually, the tram came to the endpoint which seemed pretty well much in the middle of nowhere, quite near a park but not much else. the conductor said that our festival was probably beyond 'that' hedge and we could hear music, so we set off. Already it seemed a lot coler out here than it had been in the city, it was grey and getting darker and a wind was brewing up. And so began what must have been a good 2-3 kilometer trek to the other side of the park, round the lake and past the fountain. I had known this park from 10 km runs I used to do here, normally running a good time through the woods, along the paths and round the big grey lake.

It was clear that the weather was taking a turn for the worse and from a distance it didn't look like there were more than 10 or 20 people at the stage, a big disappointment, no doubt for the first-time organisers of this event. Anyway, there was some children's festival, with art clases, outdoor Turkish cinema, candy ladies and a man from the telly. Time for a beer and a couple of photos before proceeding in the drizzle to the music satge, water streaming off the roof now. There might have been about 60 people there listening and dancing to the live music, provided by Orchestre Abderrahim, so we photographed as best we could in the circumstances before catching the number 17 tram, which stopped right next to the stage and brought us back in no time to the centre, from where I cycled home, just in time to have a warm shower before welcoming Henk to his birthday dinner, cooked by Fred.