I've been living in Ireland for three and a half years now. I started off in Dublin but I settled in Cork. I like the fact that it's small and you can walk everywhere.

I'm in four or five different bands, so one of them is always playing or rehearsing somewhere or other.

Sometimes it's hard to remember which is which.

In the Festival of World Cultures the band that's playing is Motema. We play a contemporary form of Congolese Rhumba called Soukous. It's very danceable!

Mostly there are three of us in the band but sometimes we have extra percussionists as guests. We play with Tony nho dos Santos who's an amazing trumpet player from Brazil.

In the Fringe Festival the band that's playing is the Clear Sky Ensemble . . . it's all African rhythms and the music is based around a story. That's a much bigger band . . . there are 10 of us altogether.

Wherever I've been playing on Saturday night, and however late I've got to bed, Sunday starts early. My son, Queinge, who's 20 months old, is an early riser and he makes sure that neither my partner nor I get to sleep in past seven.

Breakfast goes in phases . . . we tend to like something very much for a while, eat it every day and then get sick of it and have to move on to something else. We've had the porridge phase, the toast and peanut butter phase, the French phase (croissants and hot chocolate) and now we're in a bit of a Full Irish phase. I suppose we're quite multi-cultural in our breakfasting.

Sunday doesn't mean anything particular to me in any spiritual sense . . . in that way it's just another day . . . but I do believe that every day is special and that it's important to get the most out of every day, to experience each day to the full.

The week is so busy that I like the pace of Sunday to be different and to take the opportunity to relax and rest and spend time with my family and friends. I like pottering around the house, catching up on any domestic jobs that I need to get done and playing with Queinge. I also spend time playing the guitar if I get the chance . . . I love to practice on my own when there's no pressure; I find it really relaxing.

I try not to move out of my home on Sunday, so if I'm going to see friends then I usually invite them over to have a jam.

I'm not a good cook but I have one signature dish that I can manage quite well so I tend to make that on Sunday. It's spinach mixed with a salty dried fish called likayabu that you have to soak overnight before you cook with it. It used to be difficult to find it in Ireland but now you can get it wherever there's an African community . . . there are a few places in Cork where you can buy it. I make a tomato sauce to go with it and serve it with rice.

My perfect Sunday evening would be spent watching documentaries on TG4 or RTE.

I love anything to do with wildlife or anything cultural.

I've learned so much from documentaries; I could watch them from morning till night.

In conversation with Katy McGuinness Niwel Tsumbu is appearing on Sunday 26 August at 5.30pm in The Gastropub Company, Dun Laoghaire. Free event, www. festivalofworldcultures. com and on Wednesday 19 September at 10pm in Spiegeltent at the Fringe, www. fringefest. com