I’m blear-eyed and sleep deprived, shaken by the thunderous drums and voices. Are they still going on? Or is just in my head? The sun is rising and I have just left the fire with four hundred people gathered round it. The ceremony was still going on when I left. Apparently it was just getting hot (No pun intended). Some dancing. Some swaying. Some sleeping. Some, too drunk to snore. The party of dancers circled around the fire. The noise deafening. An almost frat like ensemble of young men and old men dressed alike in traditional garb dancing in and around the fire with a hundred plus other people moving to the beat of the drums. Much like a Mount de Sales homecoming bonfire, on steroids.
I woke from a slumberous sleep to a deafening silence broken by a small rain and the pidder pattering of tiny raindrops on my tin roof. I was surprised by the rain as it is supposed to be the hot and dry season and decided not to go back to sleep because of the rain, and the drums. It was 1:00am. I paced around my tiny home and as the rain on the roof increased, it literally felt as though my nook in Africa was the only place on the planet, as other worldly sounds were drowned out by the now deafening sound of water meeting tin. As the rain stopped I paced around for two hours, tried to read, but too anxious because of the drums and songs that began to take the place of the thunderous droplets. I knew I should go seek out this noise. I imagined the scene in my mind and pictured sneaking up the hill in search of the smoke that was bellowing up towards a dark night sky. At 3:00am I threw on my dirty pants and t-shirt, walked outside and as I was locking up the house I noticed I had awakened Diogie as well who was now by my side looking at me wondering where the hell I was going at this hour in the night. “Easy boy” I said, “Roads…where I’m going I won’t need roads.” I headed out in search of the noise.
As I left my house and looking to my left, I immediately noticed the smoke billowing up. It was just as I had imagined aside from the huge, godly Baobob tree that acted as a backdrop to the rising smoke. Noise travels in weird ways, but for some reason I started following the noise first, then I realized I was heading in the exact opposite direction of the smoke and changed my ways. Smoke is smoke and you can always tell where it is coming from. Charging up the hill passing tired souls stumbling home to go to bed. In a place of salutations, there were no greetings this evening as the world was dark and there was no need to address those passing by. I walked into the crowd of people and assumed a vantage point near the back but close enough and hidden enough to avoid too many of the happy salutations of women with babies strapped to their backs and the drunk hellos of sweaty men who had been jitterbugging around a bonfire for the past four hours. The people near me were not surprised to see me at the event and playfully encouraged me to enter into to the dance, which by now seemed to be a free-for-all of human energy stomping around a bonfire in a counterclockwise, rhythmic dance to the drums that felt as though they were bouncing off the own beat of my heart.
The sun rising over the mountains created a grey dawn in Bikotiba and I decided to head away from this all-night ceremony that was still rocking. The day started just about as fast as it ended, but before it was over I witnessed one of the most beautiful and explicative things I’ve seen in this country. Sitting in the shade watching the world move by. A woman carrying a stack of wood on her head walked by on the opposite side of the road. Three men would have a hard time carrying this stack of wood, but she toted it all on her head. From a distance I watched this woman carrying this huge burden, walking the same road that she has walked a thousand times before and will walk a thousand times again. A bar down the road had put up huge speakers outside and had found the volume level most easily described as obnoxious and made sure to surpass it. The music echoed throughout the village. As this woman, dirty, tired, hot, and still carrying a ton of wood on her head walks past the bar I watch her give a little shimmy of the hips making sure not to move her head to much. You could see the music wanting to let loose from her shoulders down to her toes. She gave a jive that completely removed, for an instant, all the burdens she bears. She appreciates life. She appreciates music and what it makes you want to do. It makes you dance, scream, and forget things just as much as it makes you remember. A jive that slapped the burdensome load she carries in the face.
