“Lesego, you need to put pants on” This was the only
direction I was given before going to “dikwaere.” How does one get ready for an
all night choir in the Bush? I had no idea, but apparently pants were a must.
So I donned my yoga pants, figuring I might as well be comfortable while being
confused and off we went into the Bush. To give you a little picture it is
10:30pm on January 1st and let me tell you this is an hour that I do
not usually see, let alone leave my house for, but this was no ordinary day.
After an hour walk on a “path” that I had no idea existed, we came upon the
dikwaere. There were many people gathered to hear the two choirs sing and dance
the night away. Quite literally the choirs rotate singing all night and into
the morning. Let me reiterate that 10:30 is past my bedtime and I knew that
there was no way I was making it to the wee hours of the morning. Lucky for me
I ran into our local councilor at around 1:30am and he offered to drive me
home, I was very excited about this since I was now understanding the “wear
pants” directive, as the weather was shifting and I was clearly not dancing enough to retain my body heat.
Around 2am I started dancing a little bit more both to dance my way out of
conversations with highly intoxicated men and to warm up as I could not find
the councilor anywhere. 2:30 I decide that next year I am going with a friend
who owns a pick up truck, bringing lots of blankets, and snacks. 3am the
councilor reappears and I happily hop in his truck and promptly fall asleep,
there were briefly muttered goodbyes and then stumbling into my own bed where I
had a new appreciation for my blanket. At that moment I could understand Linus’
attachment to his blanket, blankets are the best.
Dikwaere are a tradition in southern Botswana and are held
for Christmas, New Years, and Independence Day (September 30th).
No comments:
Post a Comment