Photos

A great annual festival took place in Douala this week-end. It is called the Ngondo festival and it gathers all the Sawa people (people from the coast).

Many events have been surrounding this animist celebration dedicated to the "Jengu" or "Ondine", the gods from the Wouri river : dances from each tribes of the City, traditional fighting, a traditional Miss election, etc...

The climax of the celebration occured this morning when hundreds of thousand people are gathering to the river banks to watch the elected diver disappear under the water for 5 to 10 minutes (don't ask me how...) to collect the message from the ancestors in a large basket and bring it to the traditional chieves of Douala who will translate it to normal Human Being.

According to the message, we'll know quite soon if 2007 will be a wealthy year or not...

The diver was the thin man with the nice glasses. He just left the pirogues after his diving and he's going to meet the chieves who are waiting for this important message. Among various magics, he's supposed to leave the water completely dry.