Street vendors in this city sell everything, as I believe I have said before. Phone cards and peanuts are the most popular item for them to sell. But you'll see them sell all sorts of things. A friend of mine bought a carrot peeler out the window of our taxi once. My favorite new addition to the street vendors are ones that now carry around a 3-4 feet tall fake Christmas tree and tons of tinsel! The tinsel isn't even on the tree, it's wrapped around their necks like scarves. They look like walking Christmas celebrations, it's absolutely fabulous!
The entire city is lit up for Christmas. Yes, Tabaski (the most important Muslim holiday) is coming up about 4 days before Christmas, but it's Christmas lights and Christmas trees and Christmas decorations that can be seen everywhere. Almost everyone celebrates Christmas here, it's a holiday with Santa Clause and presents for the majority, and of course the Catholics and other few Christians celebrate Jesus' birth.
One of the patisseries near my house has a huge display with Christmas-type things on the street corner in front of it. I was in my friend's car driving by the other day when I glanced over and saw a huge creepy Santa Clause smiling and waving at me. In general, Santa Clause does not scare me. But this one was a Senegalese man wearing a mask to make his skin white with a beard... it was very disturbing. It wouldn't bother me if they had a black Santa Clause, but with the mask to make the skin appear white it just looked like a scary Halloween Santa Clause. I am not a big fan.
No comments:
Post a Comment