As we have arrived at the place of the party, they put up their instruments and I sit down on one of the chairs that are installed in a large circle around the prospective dancefloor. They are still empty, we are in for a bit of a wait. Gradually the women arrive, in groups, with plenty of kids tagging along. They sit down, waiting for the bride. When she arrives, the celebration will be ready to begin. She finally turns up accompanied by a couple of friends of hers. She is clad in a colourful African dress, rather voluptuously overweight (in our cultural circles you would use a certain three letter word starting with a fricative, but here big is invariably beautiful), her smiley mouth sports a black hole instead of an incisor, her skin is spotty and her eyes seem to be affected by a slight strabismus -in short she seems hideously ugly to me. No wonder she is covered in money bills, five hundred and one thousand CFA bills stuck to her clothes and tucked under her head scarf fastened with safety pins, a gift made on their wedding day to virgins only. She sits down on the chair reserved for her and will only have a dance way on later in the party.
There are no men around, only small boys with their mothers. Later on I will see some men in the background, but for some reason they don?t seem to be allowed to dance on weddings.
As the drumming begins, first everyone seems rather reserved and the dancing seems to happen more out of politeness rather than anything else, but as the drummers get in the mood and the drumming gets wilder, so does the dancing. It is quite a sight. You virtually see people transmute into something else.
For example the old, asthenic woman seeming so fragile she looks like she can barely move anymore without her bones falling out of place, suddenly starts to dance in the most elegant of ways. Every move she makes seems so graceful, precise to the beat of the music, and adroit, she is rejuvenating a few decades in the process. She starts off with measured staccato movements, then becoming rounder with embellishments of the hands describing movements in the air. Like she is making hand signs. The movements are becoming rounder, each movement corresponding to a beat of a drum. Hips rotating, each slender limb finding its place in the rhythm, she waves a money bill in one hand, describes a wave in the air before her, and in a straight line starting at the far opposite end of the dancing circle she is making a beeline toward the musicians. When she is right in front of them, she approaches to stick the money onto the sweaty forehead of one of the boys and then, her job finished, she whirrs off to have a seat again.
Someone else stands up takes the middle of the circle for a dance. Everyone their short solo burst. A group of teenage girls, bursting out in laughter and running off just as they have started. Two baby-backed women. They swirl around in circles, bumping their bums together, their babies start to pull faces of terrible anguish at each bump they receive and start to cry, but the two mothers dance on as wildly as if unencumbered.
One woman spreads her overskirt out like wings, that's how they resemble to me, and does her dance like a whirling dervish.
Then the fat girl who goes mental doing a final tour round the circle along the seats lifting her skirt from her bum to show her panties to everyone, while she gets cheered by the crowd for it.
The unfortunate shy teenager who whenever she starts to loosen up and start dancing wildly but beautifully, gets cut short because someone else rudely pushes her out of the place or the musicians stop playing. I am sure she would be the best dancer if she ever got the chance to dance freely.
Another fat girl who, as she jumps up arms flying to each side, looks almost as if she is going to make a summersault. Index fingers flying pointed in the air. Dust goes up in billows. Feet trampling hard on the ground. Feet trampling harder, faster. On the same spot. Moving forward in a circle, feet so fast you cannot count them. A fat bum circling centrifugally round the axis described by these feet. The bum sways like a bee's one from left to right in front of the musicians. Hands are launched to the sides from the shoulders, energetically, impulsively, -tack! tack! tack!- to every beat of the drum. The bum whirls on and around. A coin is tossed, the bum runs off to its seat.
With time you get to know all the different characters of the dancers. Everyone their own style. Fragments of everyone's manners reveal their personality. I am in for one surprise after the other.
For example the dignified middle-aged woman you?d never suspect to get so crazy as she dances that she is flashing white underwear to everyone. Thirty seconds of reckless frenzy, then: composed again.
So many different smiles. A white teeth smile in the midst of a swirl of colourful textiles as this girl explodes in the air.
The ugly edentuous bride, the money stuck all over her rotund sweat-covered face.
And the boys hitting those drums, lead by the diva-like griotte singer commanding them with rolls of her tounge to slow down, speed up, stop. Rrrrrr, she spurns them on and into a djembe solo. Rrrrrrrrrrr, she commands them to halt.
The circle of spectators has become bigger and bigger. Mostly kids, so many kids. Boys and girls, scantily clad in the heat. Teenagers, mostly girls, some boys. Women, the grown ups are only women. Everyone covered in dust.
My regard wanders in the circle mustering all these faces. I scan them all. Eager, attentive faces, beady eyes fixing the spectacle on the dancefloor, laughs floating around, comments are being made, "oh!"s and "ah!"s are elicited as someone dances especially extravagantly.