Total Request Live: Nampula

The variety of radio programming here is not very impressive. Nor is it even a little impressive. There is BBC news, which is so amazing and in-depth and I can't even start talking about them because it will end up with an article titled "439 reasons I love BBC radio". There are a variety of religious outlets but they do about a good of job as if you turned on Christian TV in the US. You'd start asking who the ladies with all the makeup are and why are they selling prayer towels to support Israel.

There are more radio stations today than there were several years ago, but many of them classify as "community radio". This means public radio. And yes, it is about exciting to listen to as public radio in the US. Several of them play music. The rest just talk. Several of them sell airtime to different churches or ministries that play gospel music during their allotted time-slots, but they are rarely listened to.

Hands down, the most interesting radio station is RTP Africa. It is a station from Portugal and broadcast for the Portuguese speaking African countries (which number a grand total of two if you don't count a handful of islands who, combined, don't have a million persons). What makes RTP so darn interesting is that there isn't a genre of music they won't play. During select evenings around 9pm or so the DJ comes on-air with a program that "will take a special look into the music of ______". It lasts an hour and is the widest, broadest, oddest look at music that exists anywhere on the planet.

Simply put, if there exists 60 playable minutes of a certain type of music, they will do a show on it, explaining the history and importance of the genre. I have heard, and this is no exaggeration, shows about: glam rock, the waltz, motown, korean pop, U2's "Rattle and Hum", french folk songs, Miles Davis, Queen, Beethoven's 9th Symphony, South African disco, Afro-Cuban, big band swing, Vietnam war protest songs (from Vietnam), feminism (which I was unaware was a genre of music), and music from blaxploitation films (slightly aware of this as a genre).

I've let the kids listen in a couple of times, if only because the DJ usually tries to explain the importance of Miles Davis (important for the birth of modern jazz), motown (important only so Michael Jackson could moonwalk at the Motown 25th Anniversary concert), glam rock (important for Ziggy Stardust, duh), french folk songs (umm...), Beethoven's 9th symphony (only everything, ever), and Shaft (only everything, ever). The kids usually lose interest because R. Kelly never wrote a symphony, or had a disco album, or covered Queen.

The kids (and often myself) would rather listen to the few radio stations that play what I refer to as "party music". This is the genre that serves as the background for your Friday or Saturday night. To me, the most interesting part is the listener request time. Because most people don't know the names to songs, or even the artists, in order to communicate their request they are often left to resort to sing the song they want the DJ to play.

Sometimes, because the phone network will just forward your call to a random absolute stranger rather than the intended target. The DJ will ask the name of the person who is calling while the stranger, usually confused, will ask the DJ his name. The DJ instead of answering instead asks what music the caller would like to hear. The caller will usually ask to speak to his friend, Joe. Just give the phone to Joe. No, I don't want music. Where's Joe? This is a radio station? Well, when does Joe get back? Can you just get him for me?

Usually at this point the call will suspiciously drop and the next caller pops on the line. Also, when the caller goes on too long or gets to vulgar or racy the calls will get cut off. There is a little bit more patience when the caller is drunk. The calls are funnier the drunker the caller is.

Some of the stations are nationwide shows and some are local here in our city. The local ones usually occupy their evening hours with people calling in to give a shout-out to their neighborhood, their girlfriend, their classmates, their coworkers (really?) or their children. But, contrary to what you might be thinking, this isn't done during breaks in the music. This is accomplished by just turning down the music a little while they talk over, shouting into the phone so that it is barely understandable.

Every now and then we'll hear our bairro given a shout-out. Often people will be listening in a bar or disco and give a shout out to the people standing nearby listening to the radio. The market near the orphanage was once featured in the single greatest radio call-in shout-out I have ever heard or will ever hear again.

DJ: Good evening caller. What's your name.

Caller: Armando.

DJ: Welcome Armando. Where are you calling from.

Caller: I'm calling from Muacomvela.

DJ: And who would you like to greet this evening.

Caller: I want to greet my uncle Fernando.

DJ: And what would you like to say to your uncle.

Caller: Uncle, police are in our house looking for you. Don't come back here—.

And the call "dropped". I have no idea is Fernando is still a fugitive from justice, if Armando was charged as an accomplice, or what the heck the police were even there for. The situation, for me, will remain one of life's great mysteries.