The Baptism

The Senegalese have the tradition of baptisms like many western cultures. Since the baby was to be named after me I got a bird's eye view of the ceremony. For the actual baby naming all of the men sat outside on mats while a man from the village said a prayer and the baby's name outloud three times. Dienaba Sow, Dienaba Sow, Dienaba Sow. That is me and now this little rugrat too.



All of the old ladies were sitting in my mom's hut with the baby. In a large gourd they mixed water, kola nuts, oil, and some tree bark. When they heard the baby's name they began to shave the baby's head. The scraps of oily hair were gathered and rolled into a ball, passed around to be hand-rolled by various women who recited a prayer. I too said this prayer while balling up the baby hair and understood one line, 'May she know laughter'. So I laughed. The women who shaved the baby's head chewed up some of the kola nuts into a paste and marked the baby's head with what I would describe as a star.

After the ceremony they passed out a candy paste made of rice flour, honey, and water. Local honey is smokey and flavourful, not sugar syrup. For the next few hours I sat on a carpet playing cards with the men until I got bored. After sundown one lightbulb and a boombox were animated by a very noisy generator. I hung out for awhile, danced a little, sat with my friends while they prank phone called eachother from across the party. Turns out for people who just got cell phones for the first time in their life, prank calls are like the FUNNIEST thing ever. I fell asleep early in my party clothes to the sound of music and the hum of a generator.