This past week I was privileged enough to have a new and fun cultural experience! Starting on Friday night we couldn’t help but notice the extremely loud music coming from the school located right behind our house. There seemed to be a huge party of some sort and the music continued throughout the entire night. My house actually shares a concrete wall with the school, so at times my wall was vibrating from all the music! Ha. On Saturday I did some covert work and found out the source of all this noise. Come to find out, the Annual Nubian Festival was in town!
Every year people from the Nubian tribe come from Uganda, Sudan, and all parts of Kenya to celebrate their culture. For some reason, they think this is best done by loud dance parties starting at 10pm and continuing until 5am. This party continued every night for 3 nights and needless to say we didn’t get much sleep. J On Saturday I was sitting with my friend Ramla in her shop visiting and watching the world go by. Ramla, who happens to be a Nubian, taught me a lot about this annual festival. Even though the Nubians are 99.9% Muslim, this celebration is not religious, it is simply a get-together to celebrate their culture.
It was then that Ramla invited me to accompany her to the festival the following afternoon. Not wanting to miss out on this new experience I jumped at the opportunity. After all, I thought it was time I see exactly what was going on on the other side of this wall. On our short walk to the school grounds, I asked Ramla if I would be allowed into the festival, as I am clearly not Nubian and any attempts at “blending in” here is a long lost cause. She assured me that I would be welcomed, and she was exactly right. 
As we entered, we made our way through the maze of hundreds of people. We came to the area where they were dancing and Ramla led me right into the middle of the crowd. And there we were surrounded by a thousand Nubians as Ramla attempted to teach me how to dance like the Nubians. In the center, many elders of the tribe sat on stools playing large drums and nearby many women sang through microphones. I didn’t have a clue what they were singing, but they all appeared to be having a great time. It was entertaining to say the least! J There were some important dignitaries there that according to Ramla work in the government offices. The MP for this area had made his appearance earlier in the day as he was campaigning for the upcoming presidential election in December. It was a hot place to be! I had a great time with Ramla and I thoroughly enjoyed this opportunity to get to know her culture better. 
