Chapter 1007 Welcome Ceremony
Ilka, who was sleeping on the side, also woke up: "Master, what happened?"
Xiao Peng rubbed his eyes to clear his mind: "I don't know. 'Annie', calm down!"
He touched Annie's face to signal her to calm down, then he lifted the blanket, put on his pants, and said to Ilka, "Don't come out yet! I'll go check it out!"
The drumbeats became more and more rapid. Xiao Peng put on his pants, took out the dagger from under his pillow and walked out of the tent. As a result, he only took a glance at him and said, "Ilka, come out!"
He walked out of the tent and found that almost everyone in the village was there. Papa was standing there beating a big drum. The drum was quite similar to the Chinese drum, but it looked simpler. Momodo was standing beside the drum with a chicken in his hand. When he saw Xiao Peng, he waved to him and said hello.
Xiao Peng took a closer look and found that most of the people at the scene were young people, and many of them were holding chickens in their hands. Xiao Peng wanted to ask them what they wanted to do, but Momodo suddenly took out a dagger and cut off the chicken's neck with one knife, and then put the dead chicken on the drum that Papa was beating.
This action was like a starting gun. The rest of the people holding chickens also killed the chickens in their hands, and then everyone danced and sang together.
"What a riot!" Xiao Peng looked at his watch. "Up at three o'clock to dance? Are they so free?"
He said this to Ilka, who also walked out of the tent and stood behind Xiao Peng.
Ilka replied, "Master, this seems to be some kind of ritual!"
Xiao Peng yawned and said, "I guess it has something to do with their 'Wrestling Festival'."
At this moment, Momoduo came out from the dancing group and greeted Xiao Peng, "Xiao, did this disturb your rest?"
Xiao Peng waved his hand and said, "It's okay. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. What are you doing?"
He was actually very depressed. For Xiao Peng, the most annoying thing was someone disturbing his sleep, but what could he say at this time? You woke me up and now ask me if I was disturbed?
Momodo said: "We are now using singing and dancing to inform other villages that we are ready and welcome them to participate in the wrestling festival."
Xiao Peng was a little confused: "Can they hear it?"
After all, the nearest village is more than 30 kilometers away. Can the sound of the drums reach that far?
Momodo smiled and said, "It's a tradition. In the beginning, villages were basically hostile to each other. For land and food, people would often attack or break into the village to steal things. Beating the drums like this means we are always prepared."
Xiao Peng suddenly understood. "Oh, so you put a dead chicken on the drum? We have a saying in our country called 'kill a chicken to scare the monkeys,' which means killing a chicken to scare the monkeys. You're killing a chicken to scare people, right?"
Momodo was stunned after hearing this and pondered Xiao Peng's words for a while: "How can killing a chicken scare a monkey? Your country's idioms are really strange... But we really don't do this to scare anyone. This is a custom we learned from our southern neighbor Guinea-Bissau. We stole this chicken from our own home. Everyone in the family actually knew about it but just pretended not to know. We did this to show that we would rather steal our own things to entertain guests!"
Xiao Peng felt a little embarrassed after hearing this: "The world is really too big!"
Momodo smiled and said, "It's not surprising that you don't know. Oh, and my classmates will be here today too. Your plan to go to Gambia will be finalized today!"
Xiao Peng asked in confusion: "How did you get in touch with your classmates?"
Momodo said, "I asked my Habu to go to Ziguinchor. He just came back last night."
After hearing this, Xiao Peng stood there in a daze.
Habu is Momodo's half-brother and is 12 years old.
From a Chinese perspective, relationships between men and women here are quite chaotic—after all, these people live in a very small circle of friends. Many may never even venture as far as a nearby village, never even setting foot in Ziguinchor. With such a small circle of friends, switching partners is common.
Gibelin is about 100 kilometers away from Ziguinchor. Although there is a bus between the two places, it only runs once a day. Momodo said that Habu returned last night. How did he get back from Ziguinchor?
There was only one bicycle in the village, but it was still there. Did he walk all the way from Ziguinchor? Over a hundred kilometers? Just to help himself?
Some people here are so honest and simple that it's scary.
Of course, this also depends on the individual. There are also many people like Yubu who traded a secretary bird he caught with Xiao Peng for a dagger - don't underestimate Xiao Peng's 99 paratrooper knife, a dagger like that would cost at least 3,000 yuan! Most people would never be willing to exchange such an expensive dagger for a secretary bird that has nothing to do with them and then release it.
Why did Xiao Peng do this? Isn't it because he has money?
The saying "Poverty breeds evil schemes, while wealth breeds conscience" is perfectly embodied in Xiao Peng.
After hearing what Momodo said, Xiao Peng was grateful and planned to give the dagger he had just taken out to Momodo. However, Momodo shook his head and did not want the dagger. Instead, he asked Xiao Peng for another thing - cooling oil!
When Xiao Peng first arrived at Jibelin, he engaged in a campaign of "cooling oil diplomacy." For the locals, cooling oil is truly a "magic weapon." Not only is it incredibly effective at repelling insects, but it also provides a cooling effect that's ideal for the local temperatures. Just the smell alone is enough to drive people crazy.
Both white and black people have a strong body odor. The stench released by sweat glands can be deadly. While white people in developed areas can mask it with deodorant, expecting these rural dwellers to use deodorant? Is that a joke? They don't even have many changes of clothing! Add to that the high temperatures, and the odor is truly unbearable—"the stench lingers ten miles into the wind" is a bit of an exaggeration, but it's not surprising to be able to smell the odor within three meters.
People here are well aware of the serious odor, so they soak in the Casamance River when they have nothing to do and take frequent baths to remove the odor. Sometimes they also use other methods. For example, when Xiao Peng was wrestling in Cabrus Village, the local men showed him their deodorizing method: just grab a handful of soil and rub it under your armpits. It's simple, rough and effective... right?
The people who went out to wrestle with Jiblin this time were so "smart" that they directly covered their bodies with the cooling oil that Xiao Peng gave them. The scent of the cooling oil on their bodies could be smelled from a long distance away.
If someone did this in China, others would probably roll their eyes when they smelled it, but here? It's a weapon to attract girls! Momoduo probably asked him for the cooling oil to pick up girls!
You can definitely make a fortune by selling cooling oil and Liushen floral water in the countryside of these West African countries - provided that they accept barter.
People here basically have no money!
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