African Idol or Karaoke?

At the end of February, we had a big kickoff event at the church to show the youth the new changes to the ministry and announce events for the upcoming year. We had planned to begin at 10:00 am so we told the people we were starting at 9:00 am. Wouldn't you know it that most people didn't show until almost 12. They knew that lunch was provided for free so they didn't want to miss that so as usual the planned schedule here does not work because of lack of an audience. I think next time we will start with lunch and if they come late, sorry Charlie.

Anyway, one of the things they do here is they love to sing. It doesn't matter if they can sing or not, but many have no self-esteem issues and will get in front of the crowd and belt away. I can't find myself enjoying any of this for many reasons. First of all, you usually can't tell if the person can sing anyway because they are singing over a track. What I mean is that they have a song on CD that already has someone singing and yet they play that and get up and sing over the CD vocals. Secondly, I'm embarassed for the people that get up there. The people that won't get up there and sing still think they can sing better (though it's not true for most) will just sit and laugh at them. If you've been to Uganda and you know some of the people, then you know the person I am talking about, but most likely you think that person is awesome so i won't mention names. Third, it's just painful to hear not only because of the fact that many cannot sing, but also because in Uganda, they have no clue how to mix a sound board. They turn the highs very high and the lows very low (or up if you know what I mean) and then pierce your ears with that. I don't think they've yet discovered what midrange is for. So in a nutshell, I didn't stay for the end of the event as all they were doing was singing. So I guess it's like African Idol, but only the first few days when they show the people who can't sing. It's not even like karaoke because they could just lip sync the whole song and some people might never know. I guess it's too bad that Milli Vanilli spoiled their opportunity to be successful in the world when they were outed as lip syncers not singers.