Dancing queens
Another story from my days in Sinthian (Senegal)
There is a girl in Sinthian of which I am in awe. I mean, there are plenty of girls here I look at in wonder, but this one seems to have soaked an extremely high dose of energy from the universe, an energy that is bursting to leave her body, to express itself, which materialises in the way she dances.
We first met on my birthday. April 4th, Senegal’s Independence Day. The village gathered at the Community Centre to celebrate (me? them? surely both!). The music had started at around 8.30am and like a call to prayer, kids had started arriving at the Centre. It took a good two hours for the events to start and during all that long time of wait I got to know the kids of Sinthian. First only boys arrived who sat on the already well-position chairs, quietly, expectantly. Turning around to look at me as I was having my birthday breakfast —Sinthian bread, peanut butter and jam on top and a Touba coffee (I no longer travel without Touba coffee and I wonder how much I can fit in my already bursting suitcase to bring with me to London…) on my brand-new BAN workshop mug that I was gifted in Dakar become coming to Sinthian. At some point, bored of waiting, they started standing up, coming over to greet me, introducing themselves with their full names. Ibrahim Diallo, Abdoulaye Sibidé. And so on. Small projects of gentlemen in progress.
At some point Cissé came over to see how I was doing and I asked him, only boys will come? Maybe girls are to stay at home, helping with the food, who knows. No, no, he said, they will of course come. And come they did and with them the whole atmosphere changed.
She was one of the first girl arrivals. And if I remember correctly, one of the very few who were not wearing a nice dress or skirt and t-shirt combination. Instead, she wore the Senegalese national football team uniform, t-shirt and trousers, green and yellow. She looked at me from afar and didn’t come over to introduce herself and shake my hand like the others. She cheekily smiled at me from where she was and started relaxing into the tunes that were being played. Becoming one with the music. The moment she started dancing, she just couldn’t stop. Her hips attracting other little girls to move next to her, imitating her, but not really managing to be the tornado of energy, joy and sass that she is. She might be seven years old max. I don’t know, I have not asked. Still, her demeanour as she dances is that of an old woman who has seen a lot, attended many a party, wise hips, well-trained knees.
I was sitting on my chair which was slightly separated from the semicircle of chairs prepared for the audience of the upcoming performances and parades. This left some kind of dance floor in between me and the last row of chairs, which she totally made hers. Whatever the song, she couldn’t stand still. She would find a move, new ones, old ones, twerking, moving her knees in and out, one at a time, both at once creating a figure eight shape in the air. My favourite thing, perhaps, was —and still is— how she sticks her tongue out, inflated in the middle, the tip of it touching her lower teeth, her upper teeth against the most inner part of the tongue. Such a sneaky look she can hold. She knows we are looking. She knows she is good. And keeps giving more and more. Ass up, ass down. Where has she learnt to dance?!
Yesterday there was another football match which I joined when we got back to Sinthian after spending the day in Tambacounda. An early 7am departure to avoid the heat on the way there, have breakfast at the team’s regular spot, a lush hotel with a pool, and then head into the streets of Tamba to purchase the bits and bobs we needed for our work here. Buckets, tape, a sieve, and some unexpected treats like a beautiful cotton shirt and some handmade fans à la Tambacounda style. It was past 6pm when we arrived back in the village, so there was not long until the sun would set and dinner time would come. As soon as I had left my things in the room, I headed to the football pitch.
Sunset at Thread, a view of the basketball pitch
I sat on a tree trunk on the Southern end of the pitch, next to the left corner. On the same trunk there was an older man I had not seen before and a couple of kids, one of whom I knew. It always makes me so happy to see them again. Greeting them brings a certain level of familiarity to my stay. The girls, I have noticed, always hang around on the right corner, close to the goal. This side, the one I have been picking each time, is the one for the boys. Alas, as the half time arrived, the music was turned on (even) louder and the audience got into the pitch to play, the girls spotted me. This group of little queens, familiar and new faces, started heading towards me like a little gang and then I saw her. In a beautiful outfit of a dress and a top in different shades of green and black, she cheekily smiled at me. There she is, my biggest fan, I am sure she thinks every time she catches a sight of me. And I am, no need to hide.
They gathered around me and up and down, right and left, their small asses and hips started to dance to the tunes. The very same ones, over and over and again. I have started to learn this DJ’s playlist, as well as some of the moves that everyone knows and performs at unison when their favourite songs are on. I have not yet arrived to join in and dance. I feel so self-aware of my terrible moves compared to these dancing queens’ skills. I shake my shoulders, I do, I am there with them, I cheer, laugh and sing along what I can. But they are so small compared to me, these four to eight year-old kids, that I can picture my huge body standing out, bringing shame, lowering the level on the dance floors they create. And at the same time, all I pray for is to be like them. I have been wanting to know who my power animal might be. I have the feeling it could be a lion, a panther or some feline animal; or maybe a sea creature. Now, though, all I want it to be like this girl. Free, careless, aware of her own power, unstoppable, proud and joyful. What a list of skills to have. I wonder how her home is, who her mom is. I wonder if there’s music always on. A joyful house where everyone dances, all generations of women at once. I wonder if she is good at school or if she only cares for music, being scolded by her parents when her grades come. I just want to dance, she might cry out each time as she is being punished. Will she become a professional dancer? Accompanying the biggest pop starts on tour? Will she start a dancing school?
As the second half of the match is about to start the boys sitting on the trunk by my side —a larger group than before now, as other ‘fiends’ had seen me during the half time and had come to sit next to me— and the older man start complaining, asking the girls to move to the side for they cannot see! And they do. They quietly take their loud, unmissable moves to the further corner of the pitch. One of the boys throws a stick to my dancing queen. For who wouldn’t want to get her attention. She turns around, guessing who it might have been. She cares not. Tongue out as she does. She keeps dancing.
