Sunday, January 16, 2011

Happy New Year! (Senegalese style)

Tamxarit is the Muslim New Year celebration. The kids celebrate it by dressing up as the opposite sex and/or painting their faces white (almost like ghosts) and running around the village in small groups banging drums and asking adults for something (similar to what we do for Halloween, though instead of directly receiving candy the kids usually get corn or millet or small coins to share as a group, which they divide among themselves at the end of the night and exchange at the boutiques for candy or other treats). This year kids weren’t the only ones dressing up and running around – even adults did, too!

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