Mask Festival (Festima), Dedougou

Couple of weekends ago we took a trip to the mask festival - a must see according to previous Embassy folks, so we had to check it out.  They were right! It is regional with participants from Burkina Faso as well as the surrounding countries. The performers dress in their traditional masks/costumes and dance and tell stories with music and acrobatics. it was fantastic. we camped at a retreat run by nuns. once again, an international group of us went which makes these trips all the more fun.

I have hundreds of photos (the Canadian Ambassador gave me all of his...he had a better camera). these are only a fraction...

They actually danced - vigorously - with these masks on!!

some of the groups had a amazing acrobatics. in this group the acrobats were the comic relief of the story being told by the rest of the masked dancers.

A dancer from a famous team from Bobo-Dioulasso

Otto was bored after the first hour or so...but he doesn't look too miserable here! Fortunately some other families came, so he and all the other kids could complain together about their boredom and how mean their parents were for making them sit through a few hours of amazing entertainment.

our lovely camp spot. Just before the town of Dedougou, a place called Centre Spiritual Alfren Diban. it was not easy to find, but once we did were were very happy to stay here. funny thing about camping in Burkina Faso, the locals just don't get it. the staff here kept trying to offer us rooms to stay in and in the morning when we went to pay, they asked us if the rooms were not nice enough for us and if that is why we slept outside. they didn't even know what to charge us, so we told them $4/tent. they seemed pretty happy with that.