The New Voice of Toro

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Emerald and I were enjoying lunch at a local restaurant, deep in conversation when a smart (well dressed) looking gentleman walked over from his table to politely introduce himself. A bit jaded from cute children demanding that I give them “their” money, or the shifty characters continually proposing obvious scams that promise to make us both rich, I waited for the next less-then-entertaining business proposition. Instead, he explained how he is a program manager at the local radio station (Voice of Toro) and wanted to put us on the radio. He said he had overheard us talking and thought we both had good radio voices. Now, I know everyone hates the sound of their own voice, but I would have never expected to be approached with such an offer. We were both surprised, but more then that I think we were both a bit flattered. Here, all of a sudden we were being showered with unwarranted praised for a skill neither of us knew we had. Surely, this man was a genius for spotting undiscovered talent. In retrospect I think what he meant by radio voice was really Mizunga voice. We agreed to meet at the 10 am the next day in front of the station’s studio situated on the main street of town. As our new friend walked away we both joked about how this was our opportunity to be discovered. We decide, “what the hell, when is the next time we are going to get another chance to be on Ugandan radio?..”

The next morning we arrived at our appointed time, met our friend, and headed up to the studio. It wasn’t until they instructed us to wait alone in a recording booth that we realized we had no idea what they wanted us to actually say. My mind raced to think of things I could talk about if they shoved a microphone in my face. Of course, they couldn’t expect my to speak reotoro? Or did they!? I could sense a mild panic attach setting in. Fortunately, we didn’t wait too long before the program manager came in with a piece of paper and explained that they would be recording us as we read off the sentences. My fears were laid to rest when I realized they were simply demos for shows on the station. Except, they clearly started us off on the hardest one. It wasn’t so awkward aside from the last line, “lets get jiggy with it.” I tried it once, and then again, and again. Judging from the look on the manager’s face, he was clearly not blown away by my undiscovered radio voice. He tried several times to demonstrate how he wanted the line, “jiggy with it” to be delivered, but to no avail. Visibly frustrated, he suggested we move on to some of the other announcements. I tried again with a different demo. The sound technician stopped the recording, turned on the speakers and played back what I had just said. “Not half bad”, I thought to myself. Looking for approval I turned to the manager, but all I got was a blank stare. “Is it possible for you to make your voice deeper”, he asked. I tried again. “This is good, but maybe you go deeper”. I centered all my attention to pushing my voice out from the bottom of my diaphragm, but this too was not quite deep enough. Crushed with defeat, I agreed to move on to the next few sentences on the paper. Unsure how to go another octave lower, I tried to think of deep voices I could use for guidance and the only one that popped into my mind was Ron Burgandy, Will Farrell’s character from Anchorman. Finally success, I could see the manager was much happier about my last attempt. “This, this is much better, do it like this again”, he said. I had finally found my radio voice.

When Emerald and I were done recording the demos, they thanked us, and then explained that it would take about a week to edit the recordings and get them on the air. We left the studio beaming with pride, because after all, we were the new, “voice of Toro”…

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Comments

[Kihika Joseph]

Appreciation
As a concerned Mutoro i would like to thank VOT for their programs more especially Mapapa in the morning . he really trys to inform people in Toro about serious issues happening around the country and our motherland Toro. Thanks.

[samson]

vot
I beg to correct Mr William. Actually the people from Fort Portal speak Rutooro not reotoro. I had a chance to listen to your voices when I was there for Internship, I think you sounded great!!!