Tuesday 22-4-08 Berefet Wollof lessons

The wollof drummers arrived last night and performed for us, it was phenomenal. Good job I had my ear plugs though because the drums are ridiculously loud. The dancers’ butts jiggle around all impressively. The moon was still very nearly full and I could still see the rabbit that Ous asked if I could see a few days ago. He sees a man’s profile. I swear the moon is closer here.

We learned how to dance this morning. Lots of swiveling hips around and bouncing. It was tough work, but fun. After class I went up to the drums and had a bit of a private lesson with Viye which was great. I love thwaping the stick on to the head of the drum.

After lunch I sat with Tara and Nick for a while, but then it got far too hot so I sat with the blondies and then Kate for a while. It seems like everyone is sort of squirming around in the group feeling uncomfortable for any variety of reasons. It also seems like it is all coming to a head of sorts now which is probably good. We’re not all talking about issues together, but clearly there are small conversations going on all over the place which can only be a good thing.

Ha! They couldn’t get rid of us after drumming class- we just kept going and going and going. Lets play it again! I recorded the whole thing, which I think will be helpful in small little sections but not in its entirety which is going to be a pain to pick through. The wollof boys were very patient teachers and paid us each quite a bit of attention. By the end of the lesson we were playing a whole song and walking in time around the drums as we played them. At the end of the lesson they ended up taking the sticks out of our hands to make us stop playing.

I spent more time than is really sensible playing with a calculator at the bar and calculating the drinks tallies for our group for the last six days in Berefet. Weird that we’ve been here for nearly a week.

As we were heading to bed Caroline found what she thought was a mouse under her bed. I sat there with a flashlight while she went to get Habib and had just figured out that it was a frog- which Caroline has a deathly phobia of- when Habib called out “It’s not a mouse, it’s a frog!” at which point Caroline screamed, ran out of the hut and began sobbing on my porch one hut over. Good work Habib.