Naming Ceremony!

I finally attended a naming ceremony that wasn't my own! Fatou, my host sister, gave birth about a month ago and held the naming ceremony the day before I left for in-service training and Christmas. If the baby had been a girl, she would've been Binta, but Musa is a fine name, too.

Here's how it went:

• I wear my nicest compelet (the trilobite-patterned Tobaski one) and walk over to the alkalo's compound.
• Someone directs me into a room where I sit on the bed and greet some people.
• I move outside and watch the men of the village sitting and praying on a large mat.
• Some guy walks around shouting stuff into a megaphone.
• I look around for Fatou, so I can greet her, and find her in a room surrounded by women.
• Someone hands me a bag of panketos.
• I leave for a couple of hours to help teach an introduction to computers class at the school. I return home, eat some lunch at my compound, and then return to the ceremony
• A bleeding goat's head is lying on the ground
• I wander around, not entirely sure where I belong. I photograph a lot of children.
• Fatou hands me the baby and leads me behind the alkalo's house, where I sit and watch some of the women cook. One woman informs me that if I do not give her fifty dalasi, she is going to take the baby away. She says, "You didn't hear me, I said give me fifty dalasi or I will take the baby away." I say, "If I give you fifty dalasi, you will not take the baby away?" She says, "Yes." I say, "Okay." She says, "You don't hear Pulaar!" Then she tells all the other women that I don't hear Pulaar yet and they all talk about how wonderful my sitemate's Pulaar is.
• The baby starts crying, so I return him to Fatou and sit outside of her house for awhile, drinking juice and watching people brew ataya.
• Someone brings a big bowl of benichin. It tastes DELICIOUS even though I burn my fingertips and tongue eating it.
• I photograph some more children, before leaving the ceremony again to do more things that needed doing.
• I return at night for the "program."
• The program consists of drinking heatened sweetened condensed milk and dancing.
• I don't dance.
• But then I do!
• Of course, by "dance," I mean stomp around for a few seconds and laugh hysterically. I am then told to sit down because my legs will hurt the next morning. I was tempted to tell them I wasn't worried about my legs and continue dancing, but I thought maybe "your legs will hurt tomorrow" actually meant "I don't want to watch anymore of your painfully awkward stomping."
• I go to sleep, almost wishing I weren't leaving for the Kombos tomorrow (reminder: I'm using the present tense because I like it more than the past tense, however, this story happened in the past, before Christmas. Just in case you thought I was heading back to Banjul again. Sorry I'm not skilled enough to convert my blog into an interactive timeline).