This morning we were greeted by a new guide named Cromwell. He is of Xhosa descent and was raised in a township that we will visit in a couple of days, called Soweto.  I immediately loved Cromwell. He is young, hip, and most importantly, a bottomless well of information. Cromwell speaks 7 languages!

Today, we headed back to the Newtown area to the Drum Café. It's located in an old bus factory, conveniently called, ‘The Bus Factory’. The entire building is full of artists and art-related businesses. We popped into the Artists Proof Studio before our drumming lesson, where we got a hands-on tutorial in screen printing.

We also visited a shop, run by a Xhosa craftswoman, which sells handcrafted items from every region of South Africa. I picked up a beautiful satchel with a picture of a dove hand-stitched into it. The proceeds from the purchase support the fight against poverty in the region where it was made, so it was definitely money well spent. A few more purchases were made by other ProjectExplorer team members before it was time to participate in a drum circle.

Then...we drummed! The entire team (except for Jenny, otherwise there would be no video for you to see) sat in a circle each with our own djembe drum. We were led by the amazing Warren Lieberman and we played incredible, original and completely unrehearsed music together.   Warren also arranged for an all-women’s South African drum group to play and sing for us.   They were truly fantastic.

After a complete crash course in African drumming, Warren showed us some traditional African instruments from his massive collection. In the afternoon, Warren, Patrick (a drummer from Ghana in western Africa) and the ProjectExplorer gang headed to a local restaurant called Sophiatown for a quick bite.

Before heading back to the hotel, we went to a famous, local hotspot called Kippies, owned by world-renowned jazz musician Sipho ‘Hotstix’ Mabuse. Jenny popped into Kippies and charmed Sipho into scheduling an interview for later this week. He invited us to come back later tonight and hear some live South African jazz. Naturally, we jumped at the chance to hear some live music at his club - a little pre-interview research if you will.

I cannot wait to continue our South African musical education.

Part I: Learn about African instruments	Part II: See and hear a master djembe player		Hear some marimba music

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