Beauty is the mother of lust, and lust, according to Plato, is “the fiercest and most despotic” of all urges, driving men “most powerfully to all kinds of lunacy”. The power of beauty to disturb is universally acknowledged, and as a consequence many cultures have evolved philosophies to reduce its influence, usually by depicting it as decorative and thereby intrinsically worthless. In certain societies, however, beauty is accepted as something wonderful in itself and is celebrated accordingly.
The Guérewol (Guerewol, Gerewol) is an annual courtship ritual competition among the Wodaabe Fula people of Niger. Young men dressed in elaborate ornamentation and made up in traditional face painting gather in lines to dance and sing, vying for the attentions of marriageable young women. The Guérewol occurs each year as the traditionally nomadic Wodaabe cattle herders gather at the southern edge of the Sahara before dispersing south on their dry season pastures. The most famous gathering point is In-Gall in northwest Niger, where a large festival, market and series of clan meetings take place for both the Wodaabe and the pastoral Tuareg people. The actual dance event is called the Yaake, while other less famous elements -- bartering over dowry, competitions or camel races among suitors -- make up the week long Guérewol.The Guérewol is found wherever Wodaabe gather: from Niamey, to other places the Wodaabe travel in their transhumance cycle, as far afield as northern Cameroon and Nigeria
Annual gathering At the end of the rainy season in September, the Wodaabe travel to In-Gall to gather salt and participate at the Cure Salée festival, a meeting of several nomadic groups. Here the young Wodaabe men, with elaborate make-up, feathers and other adornments, perform dances and songs to impress women. The male beauty ideal of the Wodaabe stresses tallness, white eyes and teeth; the men will often roll their eyes and show their teeth to emphasize these characteristics. The Wodaabe clans will then join for their week-long Guérewol celebration, a contest where the young men's beauty is judged by young women.
Music and dance The music and line dancing is typical of Fula traditions which have largely disappeared among the vast diaspora of Fula people, many of whom are educated, Muslim, urbanites. This is characterized by group singing, accompanied by clapping, stomping and bells. The Wodaabe Guérewol festival is one of the more famous examples of this style of repeating, hypnotic, and percussive choral traditions, accompanied by a swaying line dancing, where the men interlink arms and rise and fall on their toes. The Guérewol competitions involve the ornamented young men dancing the Yaake in a line, facing a young marriageable woman, sometimes repeatedly over a seven day period, and for hours on end in the desert sun. Suitors come to the encampment of the woman to prove their interest, stamina, and attractiveness. The participants often drink a fermented bark concoction to enable them to dance for long periods, which reputedly has a hallucinogenic effect.
I wonder how I missed this when I was in Niger. No one mentioned it - mind you I think I was there in October.
This festival of infidelity was most interesting a concept. It's like a controlled and acceptable event of sex with another woman or man. I wonder how the partners are actually affected emotionally about this.
I also wonder how this has evolved. There is so much infidelity int he world - is it simply pure temptation and a growing loss of fidelity and investment in something else? Or is it something evolutionary? Is this festival a way to control the urges?
I wonder how the marriages are affected though. Is it a way to find out how strong the love is between the two people? Is there any residue of jealousy.
In the documentary The Human Planet, the wife of the entrant spoke as if there was a fear and jealousy but was also interested n sex with another man.
Well this has raised a lot of questions - I wonder what psychological research has been done into fidelity and infidelity.
I would like to explore it further but right now I have so little time.
I might email the prof from the lectures late last year.
Interested Bliss
I was in Niger as a guest of UTA. They invited me in relation to a business client whose travel was managed by the office I ran in Aylesbury. For the life of me I cannot remember the name of the company. hey were in the line of industrial diamonds and were mining in Guinea, West Africa.
It still comes to my mind on the occasion we received a call requiring our urgent assistance. A family, the man (husband and father) being the Bridge (whatever the rest of the name of the company was ) employee, had gone for picnic by the river. hey had taken one of their sons friends with them. Apparently the two boys were playing by the river in the family land rover. The Niger River, the same river I was later on when visiting with UTA.
Anyway the boys must have slipped the handbrake off and they rolled into the river. The man jumped into the fast moving a very muddy river. They all disappeared and their bodies were never recovered. It sickened me for such a long time and thinking of my trip to Niger reminded of those business travel days and then the association and then the horror of this situation. We were involved in organising the fights home for the man's wife and child. What a haunting event that was for me. I wonder how that woman ever recovered and the parents of the friend too. God! Why?
So I was a guest amongst a small number of other guests. The only person I recall from the UK contingency was the UTA rep. I do remember being very anorexic at that time.
Oh that reminds me of me buying a very small sized business suit ( I was the manager of the office - and incidentally I am proud of the fact that I was at that time the youngest ever manager employed). Anyhow I bought this little grey suit - mini skirt. I wore it for the first time. Getting into the car seemed really difficult as the skirt was so tight. Anyway I parked my car and sort of tottered in this skirt and high heels - to get down the curb to cross the road I had to sort of take a little side ways leap, legs together as I could barely move my legs in this skirt. I took the lift up to the office and my Assistant Manager MB just burst into fits of laughter, she roared at me, trying to tell me that I had not taken the stitch out of the slit at the back. Such relief to be able to stride again!!!!
Anyway Niger. What a trip. The UTA rep spent most of the time stalking me. I slammed the room door in his face on more than one occasion. For some peculiar reason as the only person with any semblance of the French language, the main language apart from the West African dialects was the main way of communicating. So I became the translator for the trip.
So many weird and wonderful experiences.
A trip by canal on across the Niger River to a river island for lunch - crocodiles were in the river at the same time we were in this flimsy canoe - 8 of us and it was so flipping low in the water. I threatened them all not to move!!
3 star luxury hotel supposedly - The Sofitel, Niamey. Mmm well what can one expect in West Africa. I remember the cockroaches running across the bar. But hey the solution - get drunk!
We were accompanied by a couple of guys - West African and taken to various places. Those I remember:
A fantastic French restaurant where the owner chef was also an amazing photographer. He had a continuous film show whilst we dined of his photographs in the dessert. I then had a longing to experience what I had seen in his photos.
Oh my gosh I have found the details - Tabakady (E): French cuisine. Phone: 20-73 58 18. Reservations required. Opens for dinner at 19:30h. A very pleasant restaurant, decorated with photos of the Sahara Desert and the Tuareg. If you ask in advance, the owner will show a slide presentation. The food is excellent. Off of the Place de la Republique, on Avenue de President Karl Carsten.
A nightclub - oh man! Hands on my bum, up my leg, on my breasts and it was impossible to see where they were coming from. Lots of French men in there and black girls. Shit it was awful. Unknown at that time of my life but I sat down and just wanted to get out of there. Every so often they turned out the lights and man people were just disgusting and completely disrespectful. I remember in hindsight laughing as if it was all fun but actually I felt horrid there. We had been walked there - of course no street lighting etc. And were instructed to wait until our guide came to collect us.
The safari - another incredible experience. By this time I was very friendly with the guide. I can't remember his name now. I wish I had kept all the photos but like every step of my life I just discarded all memories and kept running until recent years - anyway stick to the story .....
We were taken by Land rover - with very dodgy suspension and no air con - a four hour drive if not longer to the north eastern tip of Niger. One helluva journey - I was upfront with the guide and trying to understand his French to translate to my co-travellers, every so often stopping to tell the others in the following land rover. We travelled for hours and it was flipping uncomfortable.
There we were accommodated in huts. I was shown to my hut - a scorpion in the shower unit and a bed full of creatures and a rug on the hut wall that was moving, I didn't dare peek. Needless to say I decided not to sleep that night.
We learnt that electricity was available for an hour in the evening - so we sat in the al fresco bar drinking under candlelight all night. I was teaching drinking games and we all got very very pissed.
The next day we were taking for a walk in to the jungle area- it's odd because I was confident it was the very northeastern area- in the shape of a W - but looking now it doesn't make any sense. I should have written all my experiences as I went along but I was far too much up my arse.
The safari guide was splendid in his costume. I did notice that he carried nothing more than a stick - a very long one by just a stick??? He spoke no French or English so it was all sign language from here on - and grunts. Somehow I was nominated translator nonetheless. I remember smiling a lot at him.
He started whispering frantically at us. I saw nothing but he stopped me/us from taking another step as we watched a snake, apparently a black mamba we later found out, slither across the path in front of us.
I don't actually recall any more of that walk after that which I have only just realised. I can't remember continuing or getting back to the huts. How odd!
I do recall the experience of him stopping the next step.
Leaving the hut base I remember two of the waiters, well I think they did everything actually, giving me there addresses asking me to write to them. I wish I could say I did. I promised to send them the photo I had taken of them. I never ever did. Poo!
Well here are the details - the safari W was southwest (3 Hours) of Niamey ot north east at all!!
W National Park is a massive park named after the 'W' shape of the Niger River in it and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Simmilar to the large game parks of eastern Africa except that the landscape is less open and more shrub-filled and forest-like and there is less of a presence of large herbivores than E.Africa. Three hours south of Niamey, it could easily be organized as a day-long trip, but to fully enjoy the park, an overnight stay is recommended. The conservation project ECOPAS is working to improve the park's infrastructure, protect its inhabitants, and attract tourists. ECOPAS's Niamey headquarters can be consulted for tourism info (tel. 72 53 48); they also sell printed books/guides for/about the park.
On the way back I asked our guide if he could take me to the desert to see some dunes and to meet some Tauregs. He was so congenial. He did. Well he did the next day. He picked up up early and off we went in these rickety old Land rovers of which he was so so proud. We had tea with a Tuareg family. I can;t remember the content of the conversation but I remember learning how they travelled such long distances. There were little children and goats and cloth to sleep under and shield from the breeze and the heat. And that was it. Probably if I remember anywhere near accurately a small family of maybe 10/12 people. I had a great photograph (I paid a lot for it in their money) of the head of the family. I have a vague recollection of the colours and smile - simple happy lives. I am sure struggles beyond anything I could comprehend even now.
After this our guide said he would like to take me to his village. It was fascinating - all mud huts. I watched girls making bowls - mud bowls. This was not a tourist village at all. Then he took me to meet his mother and his wife. At this point I did not quite understand him. The others were nearby walking about the village. It dawned on me he was suggesting he and I marry and that my dowry to him should be a car. Ha ha ha!
I remember the situation but I cannot recall what I said or did next. Needless to say I declined. He showed me the hut he was preparing for his 2nd wife. He was pretty affluent there as he owned these two vehicles and ran the tour business. Nevertheless I declined.
Just flash memories exist of us being invited to dinner with the General Manager and he invited 2 local girls along to dance and sing for us. I had little to eat as it was mainly meat and all I was prepared to eat was fish. They kept serving this great big ugly fish from the Niger. It tasted as vile as it looked. Nile Perch I think it was:
Oh and I recall being taken to the market in Niamey - phew the meat area - grat big bulls head lying ther ein blood covered in flies - yuch. We walked around and saw many fascinating but not so plentiful foods
On one of the road trips - I can't remember where we were going - I stopped and bout a leather covered box from a boy on the side of the road. He was sitting there making them. Unfortunately I was made to get rid of the box after I was in treatment as I used it to store my cocaine paraphenalia. I really regret doing that. It was kind of special as the boyb was so so lovely. I think we went to another village that day and I remember all the kids running and clinging on. At one point i was completely surrounded and could not get to the others (also surrounded) and I felt quite scared but then I realised that they were just happy happy happy. Laighing and chatting. I really do remember the happiness despite of course their lacking in comforts.
Oh and I remember the boy at the market who walked on all fours and being old about how at birth parents break their kids bones so that they are deforemd and can beg. I saw deep sadness in his eyes - remembering him I remember thinking I will never forget his look an d never ever complain about any ailments I have again.
Oh my how I have moaned about my ailments recently!!!! Short lived memory .
Memories from Bliss
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