A Groovy Night with DJ Rob Garza

DJ Rob Garza from Washington D.C.-based band Thievery Corporation is in town. On Saturday night on February the 23rd he entertained at the restaurant 1905, in downtown Kathmandu. Namaste Express got a chat with him.

It was an interesting mix of United Nations’ personnel, other expats and Nepalis that showed up in the cosy garden area at restaurant 1905. With the first categories dominating the place, the first hours of the evening became a mingle session with chit-chat and kiss-on-the-cheek-rituals, with a distinctive UN smoochy-smooch touch. But after all the host for this fund raising event was the World Food Program (WFP).

The slightly puzzling headline ran Fight Hunger, Stop Global Warming and Climb to the Top of the World. Still, the climbing project is pretty straight forward: The WFP sponsors the first all-female expedition up to the top of Mount Everest (see link below for more info).

There was also time for meeting fun people. One of those guys was Francois Driard, a Duracell rabbit-like Frenchman who owns and operates the Himalayan French Cheese company in Kathmandu. Monsieur Driard produces high quality cheese and he is an enthusiastic fellow who only see opportunities, no problems. His biggest challenge at the moment is how to go ahead and buy some good cows to get even more and better milk. Namaste Express was invited to his cheese factory so we have good reason to return to Francois Driard and his cow project in a later post.

While the guests downed drinks, Everest beer and chilled out to the drum rhythms and flute tunes by Shyam Nepali & Shanti Rayamajhi, the star of the evening ate his supper inside 1905.

This reporter got a chance to sit down with Rob Garza for a short talk. And what a genuine nice guy he is, 100 % laidback and sympathetic.

But hey, don’t just take my word for it. Judge for yourself.





Cudos also to Jerry Julian and the Power of Joy. Their reggae tunes warmed up perfectly when the night turned colder. And with all due respect to everyone else, as organizer of the night Jerry Julian truly deserves the title Hardest Working Man in Show Business.

When Rob Garza had taken charge of the DJ table and got the crowd going (while the ganja cloud over the dance floor got thicker and thicker), the more senior guests sipped their drinks closer to the bar. Soon the gossip topic of the night became evident: Some guests expressed concern regarding the relevance of the all-female Everest project. But once again you need to make up your own mind: Check out the WFP web site and the press material.

To round off this post, here follows an official statement from the Executive Board of Directors here at the Namaste Express Head Office:

As of today Namaste Express is officially bi-lingual. Most material will still be written in Swedish, but our international audience will be able to enjoy a selection of material in English (all misspelled words and quirky Swenglish will be courtesy of Namaste Express). And all produced video material will be in English.