Last weekend I had one of those
experiences that some of you may think of happens all the time here and is 'typical' Africa. I went to an initiation ceremony for young
boys (about 13) into manhood. The older men put on these elaborate
costumes that exposed more skin than I had seen in months and the
young boys marched around following them in white outfits with a bow
draped over their shoulder.
Whistles were blown, flutes were
played, food and drinks were passed. This is not the norm in Senegal.
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| Transport. (and i usually take cars like this to get to village) |
To witness this, I headed to Kedougou,
the region in the South East corner of Senegal that is home to the
Bassari ethnic group, one of the only groups of animist practitioners in
Senegal. Every year a group of Peace Corps Volunteers head down to
the Bassari country to attend these initiation ceremonies along with a
decent number of other white tourists and a large amount of
Senegalese tourists- wealthy Dakarians who are interested in
witnessing this side of their country.
First off, the Bassari are a tiny ethnic
group and within Senegal they only have a strong presence in
this one area of this small region. Getting to this village was
already an adventure, over 30 of us squished into a car that took us
80 kilometers down a bumpy road, taking about 4 hours. We arrived
with changed skin color, layered in dirt and sweat.
Upon arrival, it appeared as if we had
pulled into an other random village. Few people were there, everyone
was sitting under the shade taking a nap and staying out of the heat.
My first thought was, I came all the way for this?!
But once 5 o'clock rolled around men
emerged from the woods, making music out of plastic whistles and
wooden fluts, all in sync doing a slow two step around the village.
The older men were trailed by a large group of young boys who looked
nervous, excited, and like they were concentrating much harder at
staying with the beat. All the tourists jumped up and began to trail the congo line of dancers, eager to make sure that we did not miss out on anything. Little did we know that this exact procession continued on until 1 in the morning.
In the meantime, everyone else was
greeting old friends, eating fancy
meals and generously pulling us white people into their social
circles to talk with us and share stories. And, unlike the 90% of Senegal that I am accustomed to, they were drinking. We walked around with an empty cup and people generously shared palm wine and honey beer with us, wanting to make sure we had a good time. And let me tell you,
they through a darn good party. These people were up ragging past the
dancers, who would step out of the line to take some swigs of palm
wine before jumping back in. As the night went on, more people danced, more people sang and hooted and hollered. I was in my tent by 11 but could hear
people laughing and partying well past 2.
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| Young boys waiting to become men |
The next morning began at 8 with the
men re-emerging from the woods, doing the same two-step but wearing
more elaborate costumes with masks that covered their faces, as shown
in my pictures. Many of these faceless people appeared to be
suffering the consequences of the night before but they still held up
their end and danced for 2 hours until they led the initiating boys
and other men to the woods.
At this time I was pretty pissed to be
a girl in Senegal because we are not allowed to witness the actual
ceremony where each young 13 year old boy fights one of these 30 year-old masked men. This battle is the final step towards becoming a
Bassari man. According to my male friends, only one young boy did
throw down his opponent, which led to a scandal as that is not
really supposed to occur. The remainder mainly lost badly, and
someone rushes off to tell the child's mother that he has become a
man and fought bravely.
After this we ate lunch and returned
home. Now reflecting on it, the entire 24 hours that we spent were
not all that eventful. For most of it there was just a line of men scandalously clad doing the same dance in a line. But due to the stark contrast of this ethnic
group and any other village I have been to in Senegal, it was damn cool to see.
