Before I post the Burkina photos, I just wanted to give you a quick glimse of the Ramadan festivities of last week.
This is me and Habsou's (my homestay mom) niece Mariane at Habsou's parents' house. Mariane's outfit is an example of typical party attire for a wealthy Nigerien family; look at the sequins and stuff, she looked great! My outfit, on the other hand, in kind of gauche for a party, that pagne/fabric is something that my homestay family would wear for household chores, not for a high holiday, but everyone was nice and said I looked good. Mariane is 17 years old and her husband is in his thirties. Some family members told me that Tuareg men usually get married in their early 30's, while Tuareg women usually get married in their late teens.
These people are Habsou's parents! The father (we call him Al Hadji, meaning he has been to Mecca) is wearing the traditional Tuareg turban, called a tigalmust in Tamashek.
And here are the young dudes in the family, just chilling in the yard, talking on their cell phones, some wearing boubous (the dude in the gold) . . . I think this is a good example of the relaxed, family-oriented lifestyle that I have been observing with my Tuareg family. At night, a bunch of these guys, who I guess are my homestay "cousins," come over and drink tea and smoke cigarettes and sit on the mats outside the house. They are helping me learn Tifnagh, the age-old Tuareg script that existed before a Roman (?) alphabet was adopted in the 1960's.
Finally, here's a photo of a neighbor trying to get the car keys out of the locked car . . . that was my bad!
2 comments:
I'm still in awe, Maggie. Saving, too, all your pics. They'll be such a colorful slide show--those fabrics are more-than-lovely, aren't they!
Habsou has a handsome family.
Love you,
Grandma Jeannine
Tifinagh is what they call the Berber (or Amazigh) alphabet in Morocco... interesting how all these cultures overlap!
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