Rain Dance

Rainy season was late. It was very late. It had rained in most of the other areas of Linguere, but not yet in Xol Xol, and it was starting to become a problem. The fields were drying out and the people were complaining about it on an ever more frequent basis. What is there to do? Sitting around looking at the sky and complaining was a good first effort, but it obviously wasn’t getting the job done. And so, we came upon Plan B: A rain dance (Bownaan in Wolof).

I was watering my garden one morning, and I got a phone call from my counterpart, Diakhou. “Come to the center of town, we’re going out to the bush for tradition.” I’m used to living in a perpetual state of confusion, so I grabbed my hat and my camera, and off I went. As soon as I left my compound I noticed the commotion; there was an above average amount of clapping and dancing going on. Clumps of women were standing around excitedly, shifting from foot to foot and looking around in anticipation. I reached Diakhou just as the sounds of shrieking laughter gushed out of various compounds, and I turned to see all of the village grandmothers approaching. They were drumming on pots and pans and singing, and most importantly, they were wearing all sorts of things they had found on the ground. One of them was wearing a skirt made out of a rice sack, another a bucket hat, another mens pants and random scraps of fabric tied all over her body. Many of them had smeared ash and sand across their faces. They advanced slowly; stomping, dancing, clapping. Every once in a while one would lay down in the sand, rolling and yelling, digging holes and rolling their eyes around in their skulls like they were possessed. Whenever a group of children got too close the women would lunge and them and chase them away. Anyone who was caught was laid down in the sand, dragged a few feet by their ankles, and subjected to repeated dancing, lip-smacking, and chanting, in the vein of “God give us water so we can drink” etc.

Diakhou explained to me that each of the women had a roll. Many were yelling “Gop! Gop!”, which is the sound of the toads that come out after the rain. Some were the lighting, others the thunder: “Dunn, dunn dunn!” The rolling around in the sand was symbolic of the water running over the sand in rivers.

All guests and children (including me) were captured and dragged by their feet in the sand. Luckily they picked a soft spot for me with not too many thorns. I think that if I had refused they would have left me alone, but they loved that I did it, and I learned their songs and clapped and danced and laid in the sand and raised up my hands to Bownaan.

We walked all the way to the other Xol Xol and then out into the bush to the well of their grandmothers’ grandmothers’ grandmothers’, dancing and singing the whole way. The whole process took about three hours and then we walked home, hungry, thirsty, and tired to spend the rest of the day complaining about Ramadan.

But Mac, you ask, this crazy bush rain dance can’t possibly have worked, right? Well… that afternoon, after finally giving in and allowing my family to braid my hair in the “real Senegalese” way,  at about five o’clock the sky darkened, clouds raced in, and the thunder rolled violently. And then it rained. And rained and rained and rained. It’s rained every day since, and there are large seasonal ponds forming in the bush and grass is sprouting all over the place.

So, friends, do we believe in the power of the rain dance? The jury’s still out. All I know is that I’m happy about it. Alhamdoulillay.

“Peace requires the simple but powerful recognition that what we have in common as human beings is more important and crucial than what divides us.” – Sargent Shriver