Although artistic license renders Achmat Sabera as a youthful man sans spectacles and wispy grey beard, it is fitting that a craftsman who occupies the humble wings of Cape Town’s dazzling carnival should be inadvertently celebrated by our national postal service. Based on a photograph by John Edwin Mason, 2011’s “Ghoema Drum-Maker” postage stamp was part of a series exploring historic links between South Africa and Indonesia.
2010 and 2011 brought much due attention to Achmat Sabera and his craft. On the heels of appearing in Mason’s book of photographs and short essays entitled One Love Ghoema Beat: Inside the Cape Town Carnival, Achmat Sabera was featured in Iziko’s Ghoema & Glitter: New Year Carnival in Cape Town exhibition at the Castle of Good Hope. He also shared his trade secrets on camera, directing the creators of the documentary film Mama Goema through a behind-the-scenes journey of the drum-making process.
Like the hand-crafted instruments he creates and services for discerning minstrels, Achmat Sabera is a Cape Town original. He has donated drums to Mac McKenzie’s Cape Town Goema Orchestra as well as multi-instrumentalist Hilton Schilder and welcomes their application in any musical pursuit. Like any old-school artisan, however, he isn’t inclined to dabble in the arena of modern communications and digital ditribution. Until he does, if you’d like to invest in a Sabera “gamie,” you'll have to climb into the Cape Town goema wormhole and follow your ears.
