PHOTO: Baka child in a rainforest camp (Baka Pygmies, Gabon).
SOUNDSCAPE: Baka children speaking and, in the background, elderly woman singing a jodel lullaby (Baka Pygmies of Cameroon)
"Every now and then a mother arrives and puts her child down on the ground. Toddlers who can barely speak, unsteady on their legs, still feeding at the breast. But then it becomes clear that when it's time to sing, no-one gets a single note wrong, no hesitation in adding a triple metre to a double metre, to make micro-variations to the line of the melody. They are not even aware that they are doing it. Easy as dressing a Barbie doll. As normal as stacking building blocks..."Luis Devin,
The Forest Has You(La foresta ti ha - Castelvecchi/LIT Edizioni)
