Lisa's Fish Fete

Hello all - just received a letter from Lisa - in which she describes in great detail a Fish Festival she recently attended in Haute:

"I attended a traditional fish party in Baro - an hour outside of Kankan. Thre are 5 or 6 huge fish fetes, villages where the dry season has left a sizeable lake/pond from where the river usually flows through during rainy season - no one fishes these special lakes until the selected day- all at once. There are 2 days of ceremonies - 5 drum troops in grass skirts and masks, singers, a huge market and at the conclusion of the ceremony, hundreds of people gather around the lake - in like a starting line. The women roll up their skirts to catch fish with their bare hands, or use homemade stick cages, spears or fishing nets. It is a free-for-all. Once the signal is given, everyone charges the lake all at once. The special thing about Baro's fish fete is that they have an enchanted forest. (Despite being Muslim, everyone still has pagan roots) They do sacrifices of goats and chickens with sorcerors. The forest was beautiful with 30 ancient trees with roots as tall as walls, and vines all around. Well, the morning of the actual fishing, hundreds of people crowded into the forest and stripped it bare of vines - everyone was wearing garlands around their foreheads, arms, ankles and some put enchanted vines around their Motos and cars. A drum troop squeezed into the forest and started a huge drumming mosh pit --the women all dancing covered in leaves - for fertility. I found out later - I danced in the middle with them and also the German and Japanese ambassador's wives who were there with their husbands for the festival. The German Ambassador's wife is actually French and speaks perfect English. All in all, there were about 20 PCVs there, crashing in the resident volunteer's hut for 2 nights. What a fantastic experience!" (From Lisa's letter postmarked May 24, 2006)