the other parts of my trip to Niger

Whilst the Gerewol was the purpose of my trip, and of course the highlight, I did also visit Agadez, Zinder and Mirriah, and some of the scenes viewed along the roads were also interesting.

This was a fully-laden truck, en-route from Libya to Diffa in the south-east of Niger.  The driver had stopped for a nap in the shade of the vehicle, and hearing that it had taken three days to do part of a road that took us eight hours, I really couldn't imagine it having to go through sandy parts of the Libyan desert!!

We also passed a family of Fulani nomads, with all of their household possessions piled up around them on their donkeys, which were almost as overladen as this truck.  & a group of Touaregs, travelling by camel, but with the camels all in their best leatherwork, decorated noseclips and so on, looking really spectacular.

In the towns and cities we were looking at a mixture of mosques (including the UNESCO-listed sixteenth century mud mosque of Agadez), sultan's palaces, and older districts of traditional architecture.  You can see at the top the eighteenth century sultan's palace in the town of Mirriah, which still has the old drum inside (beaten to announce the appointment of a new sultan) as well as sacks of something mysterious suspended from the ceiling inside the entrance, designed to protect the interior from evil.  Despite the presence of Islamist terrorism in parts of the country, it still holds a variety of traditional beliefs alongside Islam.

& here the front wall of the sultan's palace in Zinder, reputed to have three young girls and four Korans buried within (or under), on the advice from 1850 when it was built of some spiritual guides and hunters, considered to have mystical powers.

Inside included an area where prisoners used to be kept, with three doors to small dark 'rooms' (only shoulder high) where they could be sent to reflect on whether they had any information to divulge: the first where they were just left on their own for a while in the dark; the second where they were accompanied by a scorpion; and the third where they were accompanied by a snake.  Finally from the same area was the Door of No Return - any prisoner passing through here either met his death or was sold into the transatlantic slave trade.  Zinder was a major power along the trans-Saharan trade route.  Bizarrely, the current sultan also has a thing about fancy cars, and inside the palace were two very duty old Rolls Royces alongside a number of other fancy older brands and a ridiculously long limousine that surely has never been out in the streets of the city!

The Birni district of Zinder (around the palace) had some impressive old Hausa architecture, as well as a strange old French cemetery with no markings on any of the gravestones - I've not been able to get any explanation for that.  Agadez also had some nice architecture, and was very pleasant to walk around.

Even aside from the festival, Niger was a rewarding country to visit although, I will admit, not the most comfortable in terms of climate or facilities.

the Gerewol and the Yaké

The core of the gathering of nomads that takes place in northern Niger at the end of every year's rainy season is the performance throughout the week of 'dances' by the young men, who are competing to be selected as the most beautiful.  There are two main dances, the Gerewol, after which the festival is named, and the Yaké, which is featured in most of the photographs one might see of the event.  The costumes, make-up and jewellery are traditional, as are the chants and movements that the men perform to show off their attributes.  Height, symmetry of features and white eyes and teeth are prized.

The dances start in the late morning with the Yaké - by far the most impressive, to my mind.  Firstly the men have to prepare, their hair braided (often by a sister), traditional costumes donned, and the make-up carefully applied by the participants themselves.  The yellow (and later red) make up is natural, but I was told that battery acid is used by some to make the black colour applied to the mouth and eyes.  We were able to see all of this preparation taking place, and I have to say that some of the young men were stunning!!

This is a picture of the Yaké dance being performed:

At the same time as the Yaké is taking place, other young men will be preparing themselves for the Gerewol dances which take place during the afternoon and all through the night.  These involve a different costume and different make-up, but with the same objectives.  Here you can see some Gerewol participants showing off the whites of their eyes and teeth!

This is the first, main, part of the performance, which can have around 70 participants, and after which a much smaller number are selected for a 'dance-off', with more vigorous movements. It wasn't clear who makes this selection.  In the Gerewol dance, this 'dance-off' follows the removal of the initial headpiece and the application in its place of a kind of 'plume'.

Female judges (we only saw two per dance, but apparently there can be more) watch their performance and indicate their selected winner by pulling on the plume.  I didn't get to find out how the judges are appointed, but they also sport traditional hairstyles and jewellery, and follow a convention of shielding their faces from the audience with their hands, whilst slowly walking up and down the line of participants to make their choice - not directly looking at them, with their whole performance being very coy.  I also didn't see them make their selection, as despite the presence of men wielding sticks to beat back the audience if they approach the participants too closely, it always descended into apparent chaos at the end, with everyone rushing forward to see who was going to win.

The audience is made up of a mixture of young women - who all stay together - and men, some seated and some standing, and behind them the Touaregs on their camels.  The Touaregs don't participate in the dances (perhaps better termed beauty contests?) and no-one explained to me why they attend.  The women check out the contestants carefully, for this festival is basically - how can I put this? - a chance for the young people to get laid!  With the women in the driving seat.

Apparently the hair protruding over the forehead is the sign that a particular woman or girl is 'up for it' - and there is no judgement against this behaviour, everything is allowed during the festival.  I suppose when you normally spend the year travelling, with just your family group and your animals, this is understandable.  The liaisons can lead to marriage, but they can equally be just a bit of fun - and I heard that the girls can be quite competitive, trying to out-do eachother in the number of beautiful young men they can bed (I also heard that STIs are rife).  The activity is not restricted to single women either - apparently beauty is so highly prized amongst the Wodaabe that a man will accept his wife sleeping with a beatiful dance participant, reasoning that should she become pregnant, the baby will be more beautiful than if he had fathered it himself!!

So, all in all, a lot to take in, and I am still processing what I saw some two weeks after the festival.  It certainly lived up to - and indeed surpassed - my expectations.

Nomads of Niger

The title of this post is actually the name of a book which I bought when aged 21 or 22, still a student trying to get by on a student grant, but which grabbed my attention when I saw it displayed in a shop.  I still have the book, and have long dreamed of going to see the people portrayed in it (the Wodaabe) - to see their famous Gerewol festival.

I didn't go when I lived in London, as Niger was not the easiest country to get a visa for (there being no embassy in the UK), and then when I moved out to West Africa it always seemed better to wait until 'next year', when the security situation in that part of Niger might improve.  It never did, but now it doesn't feel so threatening when compared with the much worse situation in neighbouring Mali and Burkina Faso.  So I decided to bite the bullet and go this year, whilst I have a Niger embassy just down the road and am still young enough to cope with nights sleeping in the desert.  I had found a Nigerien company (Zenith Tours) who offered such a trip (together with the mandatory security escort), and with Covid thankfully not an issue in this part of the world, I packed my bags and set off - to finally fulfill this long-held dream!

The experience was actually quite overwhelming, both the dance performances which are the purpose of the festival, but also the gathering itself - several thousand nomads, mostly Fulani but also Touaregs, with their cattle, sheep, goats, donkeys and camels.  & no concessions to tourists other than allowing us to wander wherever we liked and phtograph whoever and whatever we liked.

So early in the morning you could see people bringing in water from the watering hole at the edge of the site, preparing food, and leading their cattle out to graze.

Whilst some had traditional tents like the one in the photo to the left, some had modern tents.  A small number came by motorbike, with Nigerien music blasting out - and I saw many small, portable solar panels, mostly used to charge mobile phones, it seems.  But these were the only hints of the modern world. 

Most people did not speak either French or English, and of course I do not speak any of the languages of the participants, but I was able to find a few I could communicate with, those who had learned a little French in school, or who had picked up some English during time in Nigeria or Ghana.  For these are well-travelled people!  I asked one young man how many people were in the group he travelled with, but as a Fulani he travelled alone with his cattle - travelling for up to three months at a time, he told me.

Whilst those men who shared a language with me were happy to talk, communicating with the women was a different matter. 

The girls and young women seemed fascinated by me, but were also afraid.  I tried to make some physical contact, extending my hand, and there were gasps of fear as they backed off, whilst some of the younger girls hid behind the older ones.  By hanging around with them for a while - and not just smiling, but deliberately playing with my hair, which of course fascinated them - I was able to get some contact eventually with some of the braver ones who eventually touched my hair and my arm, but how I wish we could have had a conversation!

I should say that this lady to the left was not typical - most did not sport so much jewellery - but she was certainly photogenic!  Her hairstyle, however, is typical, with the hair pulled out over the forehead.  One person told me that this style indicates that they are 'available' for the young men who participate in the dance (which I will explain in the next post).

What was far more common was the facial tattoos; again I wish I could have communicated with the participants to understand the meaning behind them, but I did at least pick up that the three little lines spreading from the corners of the mouth indicate that one is a member of the Wodaabe ethnic group.  The rest could signify clan/family, or perhaps are simply decorative.

So much that I wanted to understand, but could not!!

Which maybe added to the sense that I was in a totally different time and place, almost a different world.  Nearly two weeks have gone by since I was at this festival and I am still struggling to bring myself back to the world I live in.

To finish, in any case, here is a picture I sneakily took between our tents early in the morning, of our security escort.  I should say that at no point did it 'feel' as though such an escort was necessary, but I suppose those who are kidnapped in this part of the world are unlikely to sense that a kidnap is imminent.