Category Archives: Fotografía

Ndima-Kali is an association that seeks the oral transmission of Baaka traditions from the elders to the children: songs, dances, making baskets and mats, medicinal plants, making huts in the forest and so on. It is organized by Marcial, who is brilliant and a sweetheart. I had been wanting to meet them for a long time, and yesterday at noon we finally went to Kanza, a Baaka village 1 hour from here, where they had gathered this weekend. A bumpy red dirt track, through clouds of dark butterflies and villages with adobe houses, swept dirt floors, chickens and goats. When we arrived they let us set up our tent inside the school building, and we spent the whole afternoon watching the grandmothers teach the children how to weave using a kind of green reed with which they make rope. My toddler found a woven ring and spent the whole afternoon putting it on the heads of all the children who would let him do it. Immediately one wove him a cap, others imitated him, and today quite a few children wore their baskets on their heads as hats. Baby influencer. At 6 o’clock the sun set, as usual, and the sky, totally clear for the first time, was full of stars. And after the mosquitos’ hour came the fireflies’ hour. They flew everywhere, and flickered on the ground, and there seemed to be stars everywhere. They lit a bonfire and little by little the children, some adults, and the three grandmothers who came to teach gathered. The session of singing, dancing and drumming lasted until midnight, long enough for my toddler to fall asleep in my arms and to see the stars move in the sky. When he woke up, how could he not, what a racket, it was my turn to dance with the rest, and with the wiggling he would calm down again. I’m exhausted, and if I have to describe the dance I can only say geriatric twerking. The highlight was undoubtedly when an old woman made an optimistic sized erect penis out of the fabric of her skirt and went after another old woman, who sometimes wouldn’t let her and sometimes would. Four people came over, including two young girls, to explain me what the joke was about, in case I hadn’t gotten it. Just in case I asked Marcial if the size was realistic, he who knows the baaka so well, and so on, but he said no, hahaha, no way. It seems to be the traditional wedding night dance. The kids laughed so much that they repeated it two more times. I held my son in my arms until 11 o’clock, and from then on I continued the party happily lying on hard concrete. This morning, after giving the children a piece of bread and a plate of watery coffee for breakfast, and after roll call, and after sharpening the machetes… we finally went to the forest, singing all the way. That way no one gets lost and you won’t catch an elephant by surprise. There they taught them how to make the typical Baaka huts, which are igloo-shaped and covered with leaves, and they explained the medicinal uses of the trees we were passing by, ranging from a remedy for indigestion to a cure for epilepsy. We got back by noon, and between one thing and another we got back to the house after 3:30. I am so exhausted, but I love these people.