I certainly have nothing against Christmas, but one of the nice things about being in another cultural space is that one gets to embrace a totally different events calendar. Who needs Halloween and Christmas when we've got Tabaski and Tamxarit and even Magal Touba?
We hadn't planned on doing much for Christmas, and we still don't have any definite plans for he 24th and 25th, but I was mistaken if I thought that Christmas would pass by largely unseen here. Although only 5% of the population is Christian, Senegal seems to have fully embraced Christmas (at least the version with Santa Claus, Christmas trees, tinsel, and lots of cheap plastic crap for kids).
One of the earliest signs of the season was the ambulatory artificial tree salesmen. Not only do they carry artificial trees around, but they often have long strings of tinsel wrapped around their necks. This makes for quite a festive scene.
The fancy Casino grocery stores are selling real (real!) Christmas trees at a variety of prices, from $25 to $500.There has also been a glut of inflatable Santas in a variety of sizes being sold all around Dakar. I was in an elementary school yesterday, and the classroom I was in had a tiny tree with a single bow on it. In the school's corridor an inflatable Santa was hung up by the neck, which made him look a little bit like he had been lynched. Poor Santa.
I'll need to start doing some research to find out how best to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in Dakar. Stay tuned for more holiday updates.
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