Fete (Hoilday)

There are always people out late into the night dancing to the pounding of drums. But this weekend was different. It’s the African version of Memorial Day. Two days of dancing and horse racing. Everyone and anyone wants to come to this party. People from all over Tchad come back to Béré for this special weekend. People bring their horses and race around a circle. These people bring pictures of their dead relatives and friends. They wear clothing and even wear wigs to honor their dead family members. Others dress in loin clothes and animal skins with feather head dresses and dance around.

 The work week is done and everyone in Béré is headed to the Tigo tower. You can hear the drums and see the dust from the horse racing before you see the people.  As we approach the group with our friend and translator Naomi all eyes are on us. We’re the only white people so it’s a given. Only a handful of men are racing their horses so we take the opportunity to look around and watch the people gathering from all over. The drums are producing a rhythm that reminds you that you’re in Africa. We get reprimanded by one man because we took a picture and he got in the way and then a military man walks us to us. Fortunately he is pleased to see us and happy that we are interested in the Chadian culture. After about half an hour of watching that horses go round and round I decide that I want to give it a shot. The age range of riders looks to be around 10 to 50’s. Naomi’s cousin is one of the riders and was happy to let me ride with him. I’m short and lacking in the vertical jumping category so getting onto the horse was the toughest challenge. Without warning Naomi picks me up and places me on the back of the horse. Ok. Problem solved. Then I’m off.  Not comfortable at all. I’m sitting on the back of the horse and as I bounce my butt bone grinds into the horses bone. Not comfortable. Halfway around the first lap I turn around to see what’s going on behind me just to see two horses slam into the back of us. I’m going to die by stamped. When I finally open my eyes I find that I’m still on the horse and I’m still alive to find people waving and smiling up at me. I feel like a princess. So I smile and wave back. I made it around the loop twice then my bottom was officially bruised. Now I can check riding a horse off my African bucket list.

Note the dirt on Carlies face ha ha