[ Djougou, Benin ]
Chers Transglobalistas…
For those of you who might like a small taste of the festival I posted about previously, I threw together two short video clips. Keep in mind I was focused on photos, so I only hit record a few times. The camera wasn’t really set up for it, and I was being tossed about by the crowd: it’s very raw and shaky.
The festival started winding up when the featured singer drew a crowd around him and began the sing-song chant you hear here. As he continued, the “warriors” and others began dancing around him, then eventually marched off to the field where the bouts were held. This clip starts and ends with his chanting.
In the middle, I switch over to a very short segment where I was trapped between multiple fighters, holding the camera up blindly hoping to get something. I didn’t get much except a general sense of how loud and chaotic things were. Fair warning: that bit takes “shaky cam” to a whole new level.
In any case, please enjoy three-and-a-half minutes of glorious, unedited, West African chaos!
Namaste,
—jim
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