"The
cattle are coming so everybody is happy. We love this festival more than anything. We all
dress up in new clothes for the festival, and we decorate our houses too. We paint around
the doors of our houses with white clay, and we paint the floor with very dark clay,
almost black, and then sprinkle that with white clay to make it look beautiful. Then those
who can afford them hang the walls of their houses with locally-made tapestries, or even,
if you are rich enough, with imported tapestries. Then there is a special kind of very
colourful woven mat, which the girls buy for their boyfriends to sit on. Only he is
allowed to sit on that mat, nobody else. The boy will visit the girl in her home and sit
on the mat, and they talk until very late at night." Assitan Barry, 17 |
