Around this time last year, I remember my friend Taha posting photos of people painted in black and gold, dressed in wigs, masks, and costumes, prancing around on the street. He told me it was called Zambo, but I still didn’t understand what it was…
Then just this morning, while I was walking with Dana, we bumped into her cousin Nabil, who was also from El Mina. And he told us that today was Zambo, bringing me back to the title of the album Taha had posted last year! Now here was a local, telling me the tale:
It turned out to be an old tradition for the Christian community of El-Mina, celebrating the start of lent! They’d paint themselves and dress up, and parade around the street collecting money. Then they’d use that money to have a big feast at night and get drunk before starting fasting the next day!
I’ll leave you with some pictures Taha took today (more pictures here):
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