festival au desert pt. 2

There are a lot of festivals in the desert. Two features of nearly every festival are the sub-standard sound systems and traditional tende. Unfortunately, most of the time the tende is distorted beyond comprehension. Fortunately in the case of Festival Shiriken the equipment is so bad that the amplifier burns out after the first few hours, and the tende has to be performed as per tradition — acoustic, and encircled by towering camels.

Tende is a drum, a style of playing, a rhythm, used in exorcism of the sick, amusement in the evenings, and here, played in a festival to accompany the end of a camel race. In this particular tende, the small girls sit in the sand of the festival clearing playing the tende while mounted camels run in circles around them, towering beasts that step perilously close to the singers who seem to have complete trust in the camel jockeys (an perilously close to myself as well, finding circle as well, surrounded by aforementioned camels).

Alamnou w/ tende from Alghadad

The tende here is performed by girls from Alghadad, a nomad camp not far from Aboukan. The principal singer of the group is Alamnou, pictured below in the center.