Day 7: Markets Take 2 & Senegalese Wedding

Today we decided to sleep in a bit because the night before we had been invited to Thia and Corey’s friends place (right next door). Mike and his girlfriend Devin also work at the International school. They have Mikes friends Ben, Chris (who is in the Peace Corps) and his brother Dave all are visiting them as well. The party had a group of people that they had met since they had been here which included mostly teachers but a few NGO workers from all over the world. I met a lot of interesting people and talked with people until 3am.
We decided to try to go to Goure today, but the times that we found posted online were wrong and we missed it. So we decide to visit the markets again. I found a lot of things that I liked but since it was a slow day, the shop owners were very demanding and not in the mood to bargain. The entire day I just felt bad for Corey because he had a hangover from the night before and he wasn’t going to travel with us today because of it. Of course because he is the only one who speaks French fluently and often had to interject when dealing with the venders which can be a headache.
That evening Corey and Thia’s friend Almami had invited us to go to a traditional Senegalese wedding. Almami also invited Mike, Devin, Ben, Dave, and another couple of teachers from the school so we ended up going in a huge group. It was very interesting and festive, all the wedding guests were dressed in their best clothes and there was traditional music. All the guests gathered in a circle and the women began clapping short pieces of wood together in a rapid beat, and the drummers started in. Then the dancing began. It was very fast and repetitive and very energetic. Both the women and the men took turns venturing into the center of the circle. Even the Toubobs got to dance! The old women sitting at the edge of the circle and grabbed Thia, Amanda (another teacher) and I and dragged us into the circle to dance, which we did laughing hysterically the entire time, eventually even the boys were dragged into the circle to shake their stuff. It was a very wild night; even when everything ended the drumbeats were still ringing in my head.