The Teranaga of the People of Koussanar

Today is my last day in Senegal. Somehow, I still can’t really believe it. It’s hard to leave this life I’ve led for the last two years. Over the last month I’ve been feeling very emotional about leaving. It’s weird, because these random flashes of emotion, and the tendency to cry at the drop of a hat. are exactly how I felt when I was leaving America. And it’s crazy, and kind of amazing, that I built such a life here in two years that I’m just as sad to leave as I was to leave America.

I feel so lucky for being able to live in such a wonderful place like Senegal, and like Koussanar, and be able to know the people I do. They have welcomed me into their hearts and their homes with the true Senegalese spirit of Teranaga. So as a thank you to them, and to honor them, I want to tell all my friends and family in America about the people who’ve been most important to me here, so they can know them too.

Ali Seck
Ali is my host dad in Koussanar. He is a hard worker and cares a lot about his family. His work is at a Wari, which is a money transfer station, but his real passion is for his garden. On my first day in Koussanar, he took me to see his garden and quizzed me on the types of trees he had there. He’s always in his garden whenever he has free time. Ali is also an animal lover. Our house in Koussanar is full of animals – goats, sheep, chickens, turkeys, ducks and geese – and Ali takes care of all of them. He gives the sheep baths, and will occasionally hold his favorite rooster on his lap and pet it. He also, at various points throughout my two years, has owned a dog, a few parakeets, some quail, and a several different turtles. Ali is also a typical dad and is always making dad jokes!

Yaande Niang
Yaande is my host mom is Koussanar, and she is an amazing woman. She is constantly working to support and take care of her family. She spends a lot of time cleaning, cooking, doing laundry, and wrangling the kids. As a supplemental income, she makes and sells ice and juice (the best juice in Senegal!). Yaande is so caring and she is so nice to talk to 🙂

FatouKine Seck
Kine is my oldest sibling and one of my best friends at site. She is so smart and funny and sassy! She spent a large portion of the beginning of my service quizzing me on multiplication tables in French (at which I did horribly). She always wants to learn new things, and is starting to learn English. She Is so fun and great to hang out with!

Almamy Seck
Almamy is the older of my twin brothers. He is a little dorky but also independent. He is always wanting to go off on his own. He is also good at music/language – he’s learned the sounds and rhythms of some of the English songs I’ve sang for them!

Pape Samba Seck
Pape Samba is the second of my twin brothers. He is a bit more of a mama’s boy and wants to be around his family. He is very spatially intelligent – he is really good at hand clapping games, and soccer!

Pape Seydou Seck
Seydou is my youngest brother, and he is frankly adorable. He was still very much a baby when I first arrived – he could barely say “mom” and he cried all the time. It has been so fun to see him growing up over the course of my service. He can speak in full sentences now, and is very sassy. He loves playing games and snuggling.

Djibbi
Djibbi is a bike mechanic whose shop is just across the street from my house. I would pass it every day as I walked to breakfast, and greet him. We eventually developed a joking relationship, where he would always ask me to bring him back breakfast and when I came back, I would tell him I ate it all and there was none left. He is also a great jokester with other people who want me to take them to America – Djibbi tells them that America is too cold and they wouldn’t survive!

Djibbi Niocke
This is my other friend Djibbi, who is a motorcycle mechanic, just down the street from Djibbi the bike mechanic (I know it’s confusing – they’re friends too which made it even more confusing when I first got to site). He is always enthusiastic and greets me whether I’m walking or riding by on my bike. His daughter was part of my girls club, and he specifically told me how grateful he was to have her participate!

Adji Anta Ndiaye
Adji is one of my best friends in Koussanar. She was my CIF (Cultural Integration Facilitator), assigned by Peace Corps, but really she was so much more. She was so kind and always willing to talk and help me with Wolof. She is a great dancer, as she showed me whenever we attended weddings or baptisms together. She is so fashionable, and always funny (making jokes about my jaay fonde). She is an incredibly hard worker – she is the leader of a women’s group that makes enriched flours, cakes, powders, and soaps, and sells them in various markets in the area. She is a powerhouse!

Mariama (NdeyeYama) Gueye
NdeyeYama is my breakfast lady. I ate breakfast at her stand almost every morning that I was in Koussanar. She cooks yummy beans, and the best kinkeliba (tea) around. Her last name and my last name are what is called “joking cousins” which means that they frequently insult each other in a joking way. So we are always going at each other, telling the other that their last name is bad and they should change it. She would often greet me as Raky Gueye, wherein I would respond with NdeyeYama Seck!

Samba Niang
Samba is one of my tailors in Koussanar. He is a very cool guy, and always down to chat. He is very curious, especially about America, and we had a lot of great conversations about cultural, political, and sociological differences between America and Senegal!

Seydou Ndiaye and Vieille Diop
These are two of the farmers that I worked with who also hang out in the market in a big group. They all speak a little French, and Vieille and one of the others speak a little English, so our conversations were always some weird combination of Wolof, French, and English! They know a lot about America, and always wanted to talk politics. Plus, they have a friend who lives in Utah!

Madame Diouf (Josephine Ndiaye)
Madame Diouf is one of my other best friends throughout my service. She is always wanting to talk to me, and asks me questions about my work, my family and my life in America. She is an incredibly smart and educated woman, as the vice-principal of the high school in town. She is a great role model for my girls club, and she is a wonderful, kind friend.

Fatimata Camara
Fatimata is my best work partner in Koussanar. The president of one of the women’s gardens, she is always eager to learn new things about agriculture. She is so motivated and excited about trees, and she wants to grow new things that she’s never seen before. Plus, she is wonderfully kind, and incredibly hard working!

Maimouna Waly
Maimouna is the president of another of the women’s groups in town, and she is a bright personality. She gardens, but has fun while doing it, and so do the other women in her group. They are always ready to dance or sing at the drop of a hat, just because they’re excited about their new vegetable crop!

Ouleymata Sow
Ouleymata is the director of CEDAF, a government-funded women’s center in town. She is incredibly smart and caring, and an exceptional business woman. She is always hosting various trainings that support women, including our girls camp! Ouleymata always welcomes me to her home to have dinner and chat, and she is a great conversationalist!

A Taste of Senegal

I’m sure one thing many of you have been wondering is: what do I eat every day?? Well it’s finally here friends – I’m going to tell you all about the food of Senegal!

Breakfast

Breakfast is one of my favorite meals in Senegal. I usually always go to a breakfast stand and get a breakfast sandwich. I’ve mentioned breakfast sandwiches before, but a quick refresher: ladies sit in little stalls and sell you bread filled with your choice of fillings. The most common fillings are onion sauce, mayonnaise, peas, beans, spaghetti and ground fish. More special toppings can include eggs (hard boiled, or fried like an omelette with onions, and sometimes potatoes), akara (bean fritters with a spicy tomato sauce) or macaroni. My favorite sandwiches (that I eat every day) are beans and mayonnaise, or hard boiled eggs and mayonnaise. I also will take an omelette whenever I can get it! But the best part of breakfast is by far the tea. It’s called Kinkeliba, which is a native bush that grows here. The whole leaves are boiled with water, and it’s sort of pinkish-brown. I usually drink it with milk and sugar, and it’s sooooo good! A lot of people also drink coffee, which is a specific type here called Cafe Touba that’s kind of spicy and pretty strong.

A frothy glass of Kinkeliba

Lunch

So Senegalese people have specific lunch dishes, and specific dinner dishes, and it’s weird to switch them up. Lunch is usually the biggest/fanciest meal of the day.
Ceeb u jeen (cheb oo Jen) is the national dish of Senegal, meaning fish and rice. The rice is cooked with various spices and there are usually some variety of vegetables that are served with it as well. There are two varieties of ceeb u jeen: bu xonq (boo honk), which has tomatoes making it red, and bu weer (boo where), which doesn’t not so its white.

Ceeb bu xonq

Ceeb bu weer

Ceeb u yapp is a similar dish, but with meat. The rice is again cooked with spices, though usually Ceeb u yapp is served with fresh vegetables or chopped vegetables in the rice, instead of whole vegetables like Ceeb u jeen. A fancy version of this, with more vegetables and usually a spicy sauce, is often served at events/celebrations, and peace corps volunteers call it “party ceeb.”

Ceeb u ñiebe is another variation of the rice with fish. This usually only has dried/smoked fish in it, and beans. There are sometimes vegetables in it as well, similar to Ceeb u jeen.

Yassa is probably my favorite lunch dish. It’s plain white rice with an onion sauce on top, that is usually kinda spicy. It’s served with fish or chicken (a special treat, and my favorite!), and sometimes fresh vegetables.

Mafe is probably the most common lunch dish after Ceeb u jeen. It’s a thick peanut sauce with spices, over white rice. It varies a lot from place to place – in small villages, it’s often just plain, but in cities it can have meat and vegetables in the sauce. There is also a variant called mafe domoda, which is a thick tomato-y sauce that doesn’t have peanut butter in it.

Suppokanje is probably my least favorite lunch dish. It’s an okra sauce, with lots of dried fish in it, served over white rice (I can’t stand the dried fish here).

There’s another lunch dish that is served only for holidays, that doesn’t really have a name. Because people slaughter a sheep or a goat for both of the two major holidays, it’s centered around the meat, usually covered in an onion sauce and served with French fries and bread. 

Dinner

Dinners here also have specific dishes that aren’t eaten at other times of day. Dinners vary a lot throughout the country. In smaller villages, people will often eat the same thing every night, but in cities it varies more. Most dinner dishes are served along with bread.

Let’s start with my favorite dish: salad!! This is a more uncommon dish, but my family eats it fairly regularly because my dad grows salad in his garden. There are many variations – some have meat, some have fish, some have chicken, and some are vegetarian. They usually always have a vinegar dressing tossed with the lettuce, an onion sauce, fries, sometimes other vegetables, and sometimes hard boiled eggs! One time we had beets, which my dad grew in his garden, and they were amazing.

Ceere is probably the most common dinner for the average family. It’s a sort of couscous made out of millet, served with a sauce, either a bean sauce or a leaf sauce. These sauces vary from very basic (literally just beans in water) or more complicated (cabbage and meat with moringa leaves). Sometimes people also have milk with ceere, in addition to the sauce. My family all eats some sauce, and then pours milk on top (I don’t like to mix them, so I make a separate cup to eat just the ceere with milk).

Helping make ceere!

Mbahal is another common dinner dish. This is rice cooked with crushed peanuts, dried fish, and spices.

Besides salad, my favorite dinners are the porridges. Laax is a sort of thick porridge made from millet, usually served with yogurt on top. Sometimes my mom will also add raisins, and one time she added canned pineapple! This dish is also served at baptisms, for breakfast.

Muxamsa is another porridge-like dish. It’s made with small pastas, like orzo, that are then mixed into a creamy sweet sauce that is made with condensed milk.

Petit pois and ñiebe (beans) can also be dinner dishes sometimes, though they’re most often served in breakfast sandwiches. Petit pois is peas cooked in a sauce with onions and sometimes meat, and ñiebe is the same, but with beans.

Sometimes we have pasta for dinner, which is always a treat! It’s usually served with onion sauce, and sometimes meat or chicken (and sometimes the onion sauce has raisins in it, which is really good).

Snacks/Desserts

People don’t really eat dessert here, but my family often has juice and/or fruit after a meal.

My host mom makes (and sells) juices from local ingredients: Bissap, bouye, and ginger. Bissap is a juice made from hibiscus flowers, that usually has mint in it. Bouye is a juice made from the fruit of the Baobab tree, that’s very thick and creamy.

What fruit we eat depends on what’s in season. Right now it’s watermelon season, and the sweetsop on my host dad’s trees are just starting to ripen. Then, the jujubes ripen, and all the children in the neighborhood come to eat them off our tree. In a few months, it’ll be cashew Apple season, and madd season (a very sour fruit that sort of tastes like squash). Then the best season of all: mango season!! For a few months, there are mangos EVERYWHERE, and we eat them all the time. It makes hot season a little more bearable! Finally, after the mangoes are done, bananas are in season during the rains.

Sweetsop

Madd

Jujube

The other snack that I love during rainy season is corn! The corn here is not sweet corn, like in America, but it’s still really good. People char it over charcoal, and then eat it as a snack.

Yogurt can also be a snack, though I often eat it for breakfast! It’s either plain (sweetened) or served with thiakry, which is small millet balls (like ceere, but bigger).

So that’s a brief overview of the cuisine of Senegal! Though again, it varies from region to region, between villages, and even between families. Different ethnic groups also eat different dishes, based on their traditions. But I’ve enjoyed getting to try a lot of different foods here!!

Despite all the foods available here….I occasionally get the craving for American food as well. So of course, I’ve had to try to cook some of the dishes I miss most from home. I’ve had some success, some failures, and many weird ingredient substitutions. But these are some of the things I’ve managed to make!

Pies

This is the first pie I made in Senegal, for Thanksgiving the year I arrived, and man was it an adventure! First, it was a million degrees and very humid, which makes baking…interesting. Then, my pie dough recipe calls for sour cream, which they don’t have here. I thought about substituting yogurt, but we forgot to get it at the store. So I had to improvise. I thought about what characteristics the sour cream brings (dairy and acidity) and then figured out what to subsitutte. My idea was milk and lemon juice, but we only had powdered milk, and when we went to pick a lemon off the tree at the training center…it turned out to be a grapefruit. So instead of sour cream, I used powdered milk mixed with grapefruit juice. And somehow, it worked! Everyone said the pie was delicious 🙂

Bissap pie – one of my proudest creations! The idea to make this pie came to me in a dream (literally) and then I adapted a lemon curd pie to use bissap juice instead. It turned out great!

Quiches

Ice cream cake

This cake was also an adventure. I made it for my friends Corinne and Johanna’s birthdays, and Corinne said she always had ice cream cake in America, so I figured “I can make an ice cream cake!” I didn’t realize that Senegal was conspiring against me. I made the cake the night before, and then spread the ice cream on top and froze it over night. The next morning though, it was frozen solid and I couldn’t get it out of the pan to frost. So after some struggling, and hot water, it finally came out. I put it on a cutting board and back in the freezer, but it never was the same again. I could frost it for about 3 seconds before the ice cream started melting and sliding everywhere, and then when I’d put it back in the freezer to try to cool it down, the frosting froze before the ice cream! It eventually all came together, and even though it wasn’t the prettiest cake in the world, it still tasted good!

Curry

Pizza

The first time I tried to make pizza here, it was the middle of hot season, and the dough started baking while it was rising!

Enchiladas and Tacos

Mac and Cheese and Other Pasta Dishes

I can’t tell you how many times I made mac and cheese…my friend Corinne had a giant bottle of hot sauce, so buffalo mac was a popular option!

Homemade ravioli!

Purple gnocchi (dyed with hibiscus) for Valentine’s Day…unfortunately they turned out a little gray

Desserts/Pastries

If you can’t tell, that lump of dough is supposed to be a croissant. Yes, I tried to make croissants in Senegal, and it was an epic failure, as you can see. I didn’t even set out to make croissants. We were in Saint Louis, which is a bigger city, and we were at one of their western grocery stores, buying food. I found some goat cheese and I was so excited, and then in the fridge, there was this large block that said “Puff Pastry,” and I thought it was the perfect opportunity to make goat cheese pastries. So we bought the block, and we’re walking home, and my friend is carrying the block, and it’s kinda melty. But I figure, it’s hot in Senegal, so no problem. We get home, and I’m like “Okay, let’s get rolling.” So I get the dough out, sprinkle some flour on the table, and start rolling. The dough is really hard, and it’s not rolling nicely – it keeps sticking to my makeshift rolling pin. It’s seeming very buttery, and I’m puzzled. My friend comes over, and I explain the difficulties, and he says that it just looks like butter. Then he tastes it and says “That IS butter!” Instead of puff pastry dough, we bought a TWO POUND block of butter, meant to be used for puff pastries. So what else do you do with that much butter? You make croissants.

November Cakes

Trifle with bissap flavored/colored “cream cheese,” that went with our purple gnocchi for Valentine’s Day

Homemade yeast doughnuts

Crepes!

Cinnamon rolls

Mango cobbler/crumble, made with a ton of ripe mangos that my friend Johanna bought just for the seeds

This mango cheesecake is a proud achievement. I’d never really made a cheesecake before, but for some reason, I was inspired. The main problem was, there is no cream cheese in Senegal. The closest equivalent is Laughing Cow cheese, a much thicker and waxier type of cheese. But it was all I had, so I rolled with it – I used 40 little triangles in these two cheesecakes, and they turned out great!

Christmas Breakfast

My family has a tradition for Christmas morning – for breakfast, we always have a Swedish Tea Ring, and our family’s fruit salad. My first Christmas in Senegal, I was feeling homesick and sad to be away for Christmas, and craving the comfort foods I love. So, I managed to make a remarkably similar version of our traditional Christmas foods 🙂

 

The Nature of Senegal

I read a really interesting book lately called The Nature Fix, by Florence Williams. It’s all about how being in nature affects our brains, moods, and emotions. It’s fascinating, and it’s gotten me thinking about my relationship with nature here in Senegal.

If you know me, you know I love nature and I love being outdoors.
Here in Senegal, I’m outside every single day. My family spends their free time outside, using the rooms of their house only for sleeping. We have a wonderful compound, with a large shade structure, and multiple trees. When I go anywhere in Koussanar, I’m riding my bike. I’m in the environment, connected to the air, watching the sky. I work outside, with my hands in the dirt and the smell of things growing in my nose.

I feel like I’ve become more attuned to nature, living here in Senegal, than I was in the U.S. I keep an eye on the sky. I can tell when a storm is coming, and how long I have before the sun sets completely and it gets dark. I can name most of the birds that I see on a regular basis, as well as many garden plants, and a decent amount of trees. I almost always know what phase the moon is in, and I track the movements of the constellations across the sky from season to season.

Despite this increased exposure to nature, it was hard, at first, to get used to the different kind of nature that exists in this climate. I’ve always been one to love the mountains – their rocky crags, towering heights, the smell of pines, the rushing streams. But I also love the deserts of southern Utah – their unique plants, the weird formations, the deep red dirt.

This is where I found my connection. There’s a spot just outside Koussanar that is my favorite place to go. It’s near the seasonal river so it sometimes overlooks the water, there are trees and bushes all around, and most importantly, the soil is as red as the dirt of my deserts at home.
This spot, and the hours I’ve spent sitting there (bare feet scrunching into the red dirt) was my bridge to learning to love the nature of Senegal.

I began to appreciate the hardiness of the trees during the dry season. The life that exists even when it’s 115 degrees.

And then I fell in love with the changing landscape as the rains came. The plants that sprouted everywhere, after just one rain.

The migrating birds that appeared, bright colors flashing in the blue sky. The slow transformation, of everything around to the most beautiful array of greens.

I learned that the sky is a form of nature all alone, and it’s ever-changing face always holds beauty.

Sometimes, though, something aches within me. The horizon seems unbearably flat. I long to step my bare feet into clear running water. I think this poem I wrote one day as I was musing on the view of the bush around me sums it up nicely:

I’ve learned – ndank ndank –
To love the beauty here
The red dirt
The scraggly trees
The white clouds against a pure blue sky
But still
My soul misses the mountains

COS Conference and Reflections

About a month ago, I celebrated my 700th day in Senegal. Can you believe it?! I certainly can’t! I feel like this time, and especially my second year, have gone by so fast, and now I only have a little over a month left!

I just spent a week with the new trainees (one of who will replace me!) and it’s made me think a lot about my service, and how far I’ve come. Seeing them nervous about walking around the market in Thies, and remembering how terrified I was to leave the training center for the first time, really brought it home to me how much I’ve grown in these two years. I used to be that terrified girl who had just come to Senegal and never thought she’d be able to navigate public transportation on her own. Now I’m navigating crowded markets with ease, bargaining in rapid-pace Wolof, and traveling across the country without any assistance. I’m still amazed and how much I’ve learned in what feels like a short time.

When I celebrated that 700-day mark, I was at my COS (Close of Service) conference with everyone from my stage. It was great to be all together in Thies one last time, and preparing ourselves for the next big transition in our lives.

One thing we talked about (and that I have thought a lot about) is how to talk about our service when we get home, and what we’ll bring back with us.

The thing I most want to bring back to America is the idea of Teranga. This is the unofficial motto of Senegal, and it means hospitality. This is something that I have loved about living in Senegal. Everyone is ready to invite you into their home, invite you to lunch, offer you tea, offer you cold water, and offer you a place to sit, even if they don’t know you. It’s so incredibly welcoming. All the people in Koussanar have made me feel so welcome through their Teranga, and I would’ve had a much more difficult time without them eagerly bringing me into their lives, without reservations. I hope that in my future, I can bring such Teranga that I have felt here back to America, and all my friends and family will feel that sense of welcome whenever they visit me 🙂

Another thing that I’ve been thinking about (and a couple people have asked me about), is what has been the worst part of living in Senegal? After thinking about it for a bit, I decided that it’s tied between two things: the heat and the harassment.
You guys. It’s SO HOT here. Even in cold season (ask my family!). It just exhausts you, and you have to work so much harder just to exist. You have no energy to do anything when it’s 115 degrees. Though I’ve slowly (sort of) adapted to the heat here, I never again want to live in a place where it’s hot all the time!
The harassment is another thing that has been a low point of my service. It’s not constant, but it’s frequent, and regular. I have had someone ask to marry me nearly every single day that I’ve been here. People sometimes go out of their way to get my attention, and won’t leave me alone. Most of the time, I’ve learned to joke with them, tease them, tell them off, but it can get exhausting, and sometimes I just don’t want to deal with it.

So what else has been happening lately?

Two other volunteers and I hosted a gender tourney in our region in June and July. A tourney is where you travel around and do the same training in different villages. We went to six villages, and spent two days in each, teaching men and women about gender roles and gender in their lives, and doing activities to (hammer home) these messages. The men did laundry, and carried water bottles on their backs like babies. The women drew self portraits and learned self-defense. All it all it was a great event, and we felt like the participants leaned a lot!

Now that’s it’s rainy season (which is almost over) I’ve been mostly working on seed extension. I extended seed to 20 farmers this year, many of the same ones I worked with last year, and a few new ones. It’s mostly been going well, except the rains this year have been really late, which caused a lot of problems. Many people waited until mid-August to seed their fields (which was crazy late compared to last year), and people who planted early had their plants wilting with lack of rain. I was worried with everyone planting so late, their crops wouldn’t mature before the rains stopped, but luckily, the rains have been continuing longer than they did last year, so hopefully things will work out.

At the end of July my Aunt and Uncle came to visit me in Senegal! It was great to be able to show them around. We spent a day at the beach (of course), before heading to Île de Gorée, which is a World Heritage Site. Île de Gorée is a small island just off the coast of Dakar that was used as a point to transport slaves to the Americas. Now it has many old colonial buildings, museums, and the famous House of Slaves, one of the places where slaves were held before being put on a ship. I’m glad I had a chance to visit Gorée during my time in Senegal, but it was an incredibly sad and sobering visit. It was strange, as a white person, I felt it was important to acknowledge the things done by other white people in the past, but at the same time, it felt like it wasn’t my place to be present in such a tragedy-seeped place. But I think it was worthwhile.
After Dakar, we spent a day visiting my host family in Thies, before finally heading to Koussanar to see my work and family there! Once again, it was so great to be able to introduce my American family to my Senegalese families, and show my aunt and uncle where I work and hang out and spend my time!

Finally, what’s really kept me busy, was that we had our girls camp at the end of September…but that deserves its own post!

Bassari

The sun beat down on our heads, filtering through the trees. The clanging of bells permeated the air. The dancers kept stomping their feet and ululating, protected from the heat by the layer of clay covering their skin. This was the dance of the Masks, part of the Bassari initiation ceremony .

This May, I was incredibly lucky to be able to travel to the region of Kedougou to see the initiation ceremony for young men who are members of the Bassari ethnic group. The Bassari are an ethnic group that live in the south of Senegal, the Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, and Guinea-Bissau. Most Bassari follow an animist religion, meaning they believe in a variety of gods, usually corresponding to things in nature. Every spring, the Bassari in Kedougou hold an initiation ceremony for the young men of their villages. This ceremony symbolizes their entrance to adulthood.

Most people have never heard of the Bassari, and most visitors to Senegal wouldn’t know about this cultural event. One of the great things about being a Peace Corps Volunteer is that we get to know our communities and the people of Senegal, and are then allowed to attend important events such as this initiation ceremony.

The ceremony was held in a village called Eganga, and many Bassari traveled from around the region to attend. In the village center, families set up temporary huts made from woven bamboo mats, and settled in. The atmosphere when we arrived was one of great excitement. All around the village center was activity. There were women cooking in big cauldrons over open fires, there were men chatting in small groups, there were people selling snacks and drinks and trinkets. And then of course, there were the Masks.

The main players in the Bassari initiation ceremony are the young boys about to be initiated, and the Masks. The Masks are men from the village who dress in ceremonial attire and are the ones who perform the initiation. They wear handmade masks, each one different, carry staffs draped in various fabrics and adornments, cover their exposed skin with the red clay of this region, and wear metal bells on their ankles that punctuate their dancing.

 

The Masks announced their arrival with shouting and singing. They came running from the bush, and began their dance around the village. They shuffled in a line, bells clanging, and staffs swaying. Occasionally they would stop in place, and do a different dance there. The low murmur of the village was often broken by loud whoops from the dancers.

The first day, we only saw the Masks – the initiates were sequestered away somewhere. But the next morning (at a time determined by the location of the sun in the sky), the initiates appeared, and the real ceremony began. Because of the beliefs of the Bassari, women were not allowed to witness the ceremony, and no photos were allowed. So though I didn’t get to see it myself, I heard about the ceremony from one of my friends.

The Masks took the initiates to a place in the woods, on the edge of the village. A chicken was ceremonially slaughtered for each boy – if the chicken had white testicles, the boys were allowed to fight in the ceremony, but if it had black testicles, they boys could not fight, but would still be initiated. Once the chickens were slaughtered, the men of the village formed a circle around the initiates. It had been pre-determined who would fight who, and so as each initiate stepped forward, one of the Masks would step forward to meet him. The mud on the skin of the Mask was intended to rub off on the skin of the boy being initiated, so that he could go back and show their family that they had passed their initiation. According to my friend, most of the fights were pretty tame (and it was expected that the Mask would win against the initiate). Some boys who were sick or couldn’t fight for another reason would have a sort of staged fight, and at the end the Mask would hug the boy, so he still had the clay on his skin.

Once the fighting was over, the newly initiated boys came parading back, flanked by the dancing Masks, and carrying new sticks of their own.

Each boy and a couple of Masks went to their own house to see their family, who showered them with gifts, draping fabric over their shoulders and sticks, and pinning money to their hair. The celebration and dancing continued until evening, when all the new initiates lined up together. They then followed the Masks into the forest for a trek to another nearby village called Epenge. There, they went into a sacred forest, where they danced all night long to celebrate their becoming Bassari men.