Slamming

Yesterday was Jess’ last night. To celebrate, we went out to a bar called the source. Situated in a dodgy back alley of the cornice area, the source is a place where friends go for cheap drinks and a good time (what I imagine the sign in front of the source would say if it existed). We started off the night with a few drinks and a drinking game called commando drums (courtesy of Olivier, a Swiss guy on holiday in Senegal). After a while, one of the other volunteers said I should go get my guitar so we could sing a song for Jess’ last night. Since I only live a half minute away, I figured why the hell not. I returned with my guitar and Babacar proposed that we do some slam. For those who don’t know, slam is like improvised poetry/rapping with a simple beat in the background (in our case a guitar). It is meant to be deep and emotional. I started off by giving babacar a simple picking pattern on the guitar, and he began to sing/rap in Wolof. I only know about 5 or 6 phrases in Wolof, but I could tell just from the way he was speaking and the body language of the other Senegalese guys in our group that the song was emotional. My guitar was passed around to several other Senegalese guys who did their own slams, and we all joined in singing. People sang in Wolof, French, and English, which made for some very humorous songs. Some odd choruses that come to mind are “Jess, Jess, you have a nice dress”, and Babacar’s “English lover” song (a homage to the English language, not something, well naughty). We slammed till about 3 in the morning. Needless to say it was my favorite night here so far.