My Very Own (Tuareg) Cinderella Story

A few weeks ago the country of Niger (and many others) celebrated Tabaski—a Muslim religious holiday where each family buys a sheep or goat that they sacrifice for the atonement of their sins. They then barbeque this meat and take it around to neighbours, asking them for forgiveness for any wrongs they may have done against them in the past year. Horrifyingly enough, these sacrifices are done out on the street in front of their houses—I saw many poor animals being beheaded that day and made the mistake of befriending my guard’s sheep, only hours before the slaughter!

The sheep I made friends with

The sheep slaughtered and splayed for roasting

After such holidays, the Tuareg community in Niamey get together for a night of music and dancing and my local Tuareg friends had invited me to go along with them to this event! And so began my transformation from boring white girl to Tuareg Princess (which took a little longer than just the wave of a magic wand by my fairy godmother).

Task number one? Well, every princess needs a party dress. Chantelle and I headed out one afternoon to a market that travels across West Africa and happened to be in town. There was boutique after boutique of pre-made outfits, made from a material called bazzain (not so sure how to spell this word!). It’s a think cloth that has a layer of wax on it and so it basically feels like you’re wearing paper and it makes a lot of noise every time you move, but it’s expensive and considered to be the African ball gown. We were both successful in finding outfits that we loved AND that already fit (okay, except for a few minor adjustments but thankfully Chantelle has some crazy mad sewing machine skills!)

I then spent Friday afternoon hanging out at my friend Aminata’s house along with a couple other Tuareg girls, having our hands and feet henna-ed. Even though the girls often lapsed into speak Tamasheq, a language I don’t yet understand), I left feeling like I had had a great time!

Saturday the transformation all came together—fancy outfit, henna-ed hands and feet, and a pretty hair-do, courtesy of Joelle who teaches the children of my teammates, the Marineaus. All done up, I headed over to Chantelle’s for a quick photo shoot and then off to pick up our friends. My guard that night is a little Tamasheq man who speaks very little French, but I did manage to pick out the Tamasheq word for “beautiful” in the string of words he directed at me. :)

All dressed up for the party!

When we picked up our friends, Aminata and Miriama (sisters) it was fun to ooh and aww over each others fancy bazzain outfits before heading off to our party. Even though we arrived about an hour late, we were still some of the first people there, with the opening band warming up. In the court yard, the stage lined one side and the other three sides had chairs set up, all facing the rectangle in the middle, where a mat was spread out—the dance floor. The Tamasheq music is actually quite good—kind of a mixture of folk and jazz with an African/Arab twist? Slowly people got up to dance, which I had to first observe before joining in. Let me explain to you Tuareg dancing:

The dancers make two lines, facing each other, and then shift back and forth from one foot to the other. Sometimes there’s a small variation and there were a few who were a little more adventurous in their dance moves. Then, at no specific time, the people cross over and switch lines. Each time this happened, it took me a while to find the nice little step pattern I’d created for myself, but hey, at least this was dancing I could do! Despite my many years in Africa, I have never managed to acquire any sense of rhythm. Then a few bars before the end of each song, everyone would flee the dance floor and find their seats again!

Aminata and I at the music night

Then, just after midnight, the party came to an abrupt end and we all went home, and I returned to being normal, boring Rebecca. All I needed was a Prince Charming and a glass slipper and I would have had myself my very own Cinderella story. ;)