Sunday was spent visiting my host sister Aida and her husband Serigne Fallou at his house. My brother-in-law is a marabout and so we spent the pilgrimage with his family, sleeping at his father's house and then spending the day at either house.
(host sister Aida and her son Cheikh Houna)
(Fama and I)
(Balle and Fama)
(Serigne Modou and host brother-in-law Morane)
That evening, then, we visited a great marabout on the outskirts of the city. Serigne Ahmsatou Mbacke has a great compound with many separate buildings. It was an eye-opening experience as I got to see a different aspect to Mouridism than I had been exposed to in Dakar. The young talibes (boys under the marabouts care to learn the coran) filled the air with the dissonance of the religious chants as we knelt and prayed at the feet of the marabout in an open gazebo-like structure.
(my nephew Cheikh Houna, a future marabout, playing with the curtains at the marabout's compound)
Monday, I could start to feel the city begin to fill up. Saturday, there was relatively little traffic coming into the city. It was just like Dakar on any other day. Sunday, noticed more people moving around, but still nothing too overwhelming. Monday though, I could start to feel the sides closing in. More horse-drawn carts, more cars, more people.
(perfect image: horse-drawn cart, camel to be slaughtered, and an SUV)
(top row, L-R: host uncle Tonto Adama, Maman, ME!, Fama)
(bottom row: my host cousins)
After a day out on the town, we visited the mosque late that evening after catching our breadth a bit. An absolutely breathtaking site! This is truly an architectural masterpiece.
I was astonished by the amount of people - standing in line to pray in one of the mausoleums, sleeping on the hard marble floor or on the sand, sitting along the fencing - so many!!!
(Serigne Modou and I)
(famous photograph of Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba)
(people! people! people!)
(Balle, Fama and I)
(a video of the really long line to get into one of the mausoleums to pray)
So after hearing "toubab" for the first few days, I started hearing something quite different when I wore the veil - "Vaidehi". The star of an Indian soap opera (so addictive!), she is much better than "toubab". She had just wrapped a week-long visit to Dakar at the beginning of Magal - so maybe they thought she decided to extend her stay! Best moment: a three-year old girl ran up to me, shouting "Vaidehi, Ana Aryan?" (Vaidehi, how is Aryan (her husband on the TV-show.) - all I could answer was "Aryan, munga fa." (Aryan is doing well - or literally, Aryan is over there.) Make your own judgment on our similarities:
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