The party

The little town of Faloa, in central Niger, was excited about the party we had said we would host. A group of women, mostly Narba's family, cooked rice and sauce in the afternoon. We had bought a lot of rice,which was a treat in mid-August, the hunger season. Rice was expensive compared to the staple grain of millet, so it was special.

The women cooked it in big pots on wood fires, in their compound. Then they delivered it to Jessica's little concession, where dozens and dozens of women came by to share it. The candy that I had brought from the US was also shared.

The women wanted a dance, and they wanted to hire drummers. So they gathered at Jessica's concession in the afternoon and shoved coins at her to help defray the cost. The excitement was palpable!


Four of the eight drummers; one group came from a neighboring village.

The dancing occurred in the late afternoon; it was all women except for the musicians themselves. The crowd was probably 200 or so women and young girls.

Everybody danced, even the visiting Peace Corps volunteers who had come to meet us and be guests at our party.

It lasted for at least an hour, and was so amazing.

It was a mass of color, sound, and movement.

Shaibu, a neighbor (and Narba's son), butchered the sheep and cooked it over an open fire for hours. Then it was meticulously cut into many pieces, and secretly delivered to over 50 households, all after dark. Narba helped make the decisions of who got some, and who did not. It was stressful. How do you have "parties" in this land of so little? How do you share what you have when there is not enough to go around?

Well, I can say this: nothing went to waste. When it was over, there wasn't so much as a dry bone left. And all of us were really quite tired. But days later, they were still talking about it.