Special thanks to Maradona

Finally, the end of Ramadan had come. The end of Ramadan is determined by a bunch of religious guys who study the moon. Unfortunately, it is hard to tell exactly what will be the result in advance. We were left in doubt until Saturday evening whether it would be Sunday or Monday. I somewhat started to understand the clash of civilizations theory then: in the West, it is impossible to announce a national holiday without two months prior notice.

While in Saudi-Arabia, Muslims rejoiced in being able to swallow their spit again, around here, the good Muslims were happy to be able to eat and drink again, and the not-so-good Muslims enjoyed being able to drink alcohol again (or not having to do it secretly anymore).

Seydou had invited me (after some of my ‘subtle’ hints) to celebrate this holiday with him and, as usual, the anthropologist in me had readily agreed, although the expat in me had some doubts. I expected something involving killing a sheep with a blunt knife, and me being forced to eat until I had grown two sizes by some old granny, or something. Luckily, it was not like that. Instead, we joined up with a group of young (that is: thirtyish) liberals, and visited two liberal Parliamentarians at their homes.

I had put on my most beautiful dress, making sure that my knees were covered for once, and wore a pair of really big, fake-gold earrings, thinking that that might be most likely to appeal to the local sense of fashion. I jumped on the back of Seydou’s moped, and enjoyed the ride to some far-away quartier, where children look up surprised, calling out ‘Nasara!’ (white person!) when you drive by and have the time of their life when you shake hands with them.

The Parliamentarian had a nice house and very comfy lounging chairs, and served us good food. We ate and chatted with each other, until Seydou gave a little speech, thanking and praising the Parliamentarian, as young people are supposed to do around their patron. I listened, smiled, and enjoyed a little after-diner dip, until Seydou, to my horror, asked me to say a few words. I jumped up, blurred out about everything nice I could think of, about Burkina, and the Parliamentarian, and how great it was to be there, etc., and got applause. ‘Thank you for that’, I later said to Seydou. He did not notice the sarcasm in my voice, and said it was nothing, really.

During our visit, some other people joined too, of whom I liked best the guy sporting a long, white dress over an Italian football shirt, accessorized with a praying mat hanging loosely over his shoulder.

We made our way to the second Parliamentarian then, who lived more humble, probably because it is his second house (his first house being in his constituency). He too gave us food, but I was excused, because they know I’m a vegetarian (although knowing and understanding are two completely different things), and because I explained once more that for some reason, women in Europe are supposed to be bony, and therefore cannot eat too much (which they fail to comprehend even more than the vegetarianism, and who could blame them?).

To accompany the food, the Parliamentarian took a bottle of wine from his stock. I didn’t take any, out of some sort of prudency, and because I wasn’t sure what to think of a wine named after famous football player Maradona. ‘But we are here to celebrate the end of Ramadan’, I muttered. They laughed, and spoke of religious tolerance in Burkina, which apparently means not taking your own religion too strict either.

Then, we left again, and we swooshed through the night on Seydou’s moped, through streets which held the middle between mud pools and small lakes. The night air was cool, the wind played through my fake-golden earrings and everyone was smiling and happy, because of the end of Ramadan, and with special thanks to Maradona, of course.