Ismail Balde Commi is a 28-year-old from Senegal who has been living in Zagreb for four years now. As he told 100 posto, the reason he decided to move here was love – he fell in love with a Croatian woman in Senegal. Today, both of them live in Zagreb and they have two children. Ismail jokes that his son teaches him Croatian.
He teaches playing African drums, known as the djembe and numerous Croatian musicians have attended his classes. His djembe classes started a real revolution because a growing number of citizens of Zagreb have decided to attend his workshop, held at August Cesarec school in Sveti Duh.
Known among friends as Commi, Ismail says he feels great in Croatia. He says that the Croatian mentality is pretty similar to Senegalese and that people are warm and willing to help.
It was in Croatia that he first saw snow and he couldn’t stop smiling because it made him so happy. He even retold his experience to his family in Africa later.
His favourite Croatian dish is ćevapi and he says that he could eat them every day.
Commi describes Senegal as a happy place with a lot of smiling people, even though the living conditions are worse than in Croatia. Still, this doesn’t prevent the Senegalese from living their lives to the fullest.
He considers Croatia his second home, and he wants to stay here and continue successfully teaching amateurs and musicians at his workshops of west-African drums in Zagreb.
His west-African rhythms workshop starts tomorrow, so hurry up and check it out here.
You can see Commi play below:
