Holidays

Christmas
I celebrated Christmas in my village. I went to mass at the Catholic Church in the morning. The service was normal, except more crowded. During the afternoon, there was some traditional dancing. For the dancing, there was a group of drummers. All the people circled around the drummers. The drummers would single out a person from the crowd by beating their drum and kneeling in front of them. The person that was singled out would then place some money on the drummer’s forehead. When the drummer received the money, all the drummers would play for the person who paid them. The person would then dance for a small time. If people liked the dancer, they would come out of the crowd and put money onto the dancer’s forehead. Both men and women danced.

Fire Festival
This is definitely one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. A gong gong beater started to drum after dark to tell people to gather. Everyone gathered at the chief’s house, bringing torches made of grass with them. The children gathered around first, and then everyone started dancing. Both adults and children painted their faces with white powder, so it looks like a mask. More children painted their faces than adults. As more people gathered, the dancing picked up in intensity. Finally the fire was started, and everyone lit their torches while still dancing. Then everyone started to move along various paths, lighting up dried grass while they went. When we reached the road, grass was lit on both sides of the road. It felt a lot like how I imagine being caught in a forest fire would feel. Miraculously, nobody’s house caught on fire (most houses have grass roofs). After this, people tore tree branches off and danced around with the branches. By this time, the people had made their way back to the chief’s house. The dancing continued late into the night, although after a while it was hard to tell if people were dancing or fighting. I was informed they were dancing- but do you really need to sharpen your machete to dance with it? Apparently so, because I saw a few people sharpening theirs before joining the fray. Some people say the dancers don’t get cut because they have been sprinkled with a special concoction of water and tree branches which grants protection. It wasn’t too long before I couldn’t see anything at all because of all the dust kicked up by the dancers.

The Village Idiot
If my village has an idiot, it’s me. Here are some examples:
• I was trying to explain to somebody sitting next to me on the lorry that I was laughing at something my grandma wrote to me, and I told him to write my housewife instead.
• I started seeing some green, leafy crops growing, and I got all excited because it’s hard to find fresh greens here. I asked my counterpart what it was so that I could ask around my market for some. He told me it was tobacco. Tobacco leaves were not the salad material I was hoping for.
• I don’t have skills that most seven year old children here have- like how to tie a baby on my back, how to carry water on my head, how to take a boiling pot of yams off the fire without using potholders, how to ride a bike when my feet won’t reach the pedals, how to slaughter and smoke guinea fowl or chicken, how to kill mice and birds with a slingshot, or how to mow the soccer field with a machete. I am not exaggerating about the ages. You see very young children doing most of these tasks here, and I can’t do any of them. I can carry groceries on my head though, I’ve been working pretty hard on that.
• I still can’t pronounce my Dagboni name. I’m starting to think that I won’t ever be able to.
• I still get lost in my village, even though I walk through different parts of it every day and the village isn’t really big.

Selling a Cow
It doesn’t quite take a village to load a cow onto the top of a lorry, but it does take a pretty decent sized crowd. When somebody sells a cow to a butcher in Tamale, they tie a rope around the cow’s hind leg so that they can control the cow’s movements. When they get the cow next to the lorry (yes, the cows get loaded on top of the lorries along with goats, chickens, luggage, and people who won’t fit inside because the lorries are so full) they tip the cow over, grab it’s legs, and a crowd gathers to help shove the cow up towards the top of the lorry. Another small crowd on top helps grab the cow, and they strap it on top and wait for all the people and other luggage to get loaded. I’ve also seen a cow in the back of a taxi. I hope I see a cow being loaded into a taxi before I leave, just because I can’t picture how you can get the cow into the taxi. There aren’t many taxis in my village though.