So Much For Love

Chapter Nine

Assalamu alaikum.

Who is up for some dance steps?💃💃💃😁

Put on some dancing shoes and brace yourselves for the music and, Love in the air?

The air was joyful, filled with the festive mood. Little children ran up and about in order to keep the tempo higher.

The Leng Dori festival had almost commenced. Being largely an agrarian community, it was the most anticipated event of the year.

The Leng Dori was considered the climax of all the year’s activities. People from various villages all converge in one square to celebrate the harvests and give thanks to the Almighty for witnessing the New Year. It was a festival celebrated even if lesser harvests were reaped.

Food was expected from every household. Every family member within the community took part and played their delegated role.

The men provided the grains, the children fetched water and fire woods, while the women were tasked with the meal preparations to feed the horde of visitors from other communities who’d come to celebrate with them.
For the past week they’d pounded and grounded the sorghum to powder mainly to prepare tuwon dawa, a classic favorite.

Their ancestors were hunters and the meats of hippopotamuses, elephants, bush bucks, antelopes were highly favored. But in this era of ban from hunting by the government in order to preserve government games reserve, a large number of goats, chickens and ducks were slaughtered instead.

Sea of people adorned in the traditional regalia made the festival more profound. Men dressed in warrior attires to depict the army within the community. Others dressed as hunters, masquerades.

Traditional music blasted the air, men, women formed groups and took to the dancing square, singing and dancing to traditional songs that have been sung since time immemorial.

The chief priest later made an appearance as he danced and maneuvered through the crowd, leaving them awed in his wake.

He was a symbol of unity, a unifying factor between the traditional gods and the ordinary man. Though the advent of religions has relegated this particular practice, it was still done for the sake of preserving the identity of the celebrations.

After much dancing and merry making, the chief of the community graced the occasion with his colorful appearance mounted on a horseback.

The entire crowd cheered on as he made his grand entrance in his usual unique style. There were several assistants that walked beside him on foot, chanting all sorts of praises at him.

His traditional music players played the only music that was related to royalty. The lyrics were particular to him. His achievements and character were mentioned.

Some of the oldies danced as the musicians called out his line of genealogy with a sense of nostalgia, taking time to recount each chief right from the first to lead the nation.

Then the ceremony commenced officially. The leader gave an astounding speech about how good the past year had been and had implored on all the people to plough more farms as the government had promised that new road projects would be executed in the area, giving them more access to the cities.

The chairman of the local authority who came on special invitation mounted the podium and gave his speech on behalf of the government. He’d announced that the government had promised to sponsor ten youths from within the communities that would study agriculture and horticulture at various levels of higher institutions of learning.