ho ho ho

How does one properly celebrate the first night of Hanukkah in a Djola-hearted city on the periphery of a 95% Muslim country? One of the volunteers back in Thiès got a package containing a menorah and some cheap colorful candles (the Crayola crayon type, which will have to do. What can I say? I’ve got a weakness for beautiful Hanukkah candles.) So we video-conferenced. Inbal gave all the participating goyel a brief run down on the Macabees, the destroyed temple of Jerusalem, the oil that burned for eight days and eight nights, and the commemoration of that miracle through our wintery Festival of Lights. All relatively well and fine on their end of the webcam, mine was a little less conventional. We’ve had all of the regional supervisors in town for a conference - it’s fun when they’re all here - and the night before Moussa (the guard) was telling them all about my webcam. (Moussa gets a kick out of seeing my family in the computer). Looking at me and my webcam like we were something right out of the Jettsons, if they knew the Jettsons, the 5 or 6 of them fall somewhere between misunderstanding and total disbelief with the whole thing. So last night, they huddled around my laptop - Arona, Moussa, the other Moussa, Tamba, Insa, Mamadou - mesmerized as much by the camera as by Inbal’s simple ritual, her lovely prayer, the the two flickering lights. (Forget the choppy image and cheap candles and tears of laughter, it was perfect.) Arona decided to contribute a little Djola ditty of his own to the delight of the girls in Thiès.

The significance of this, to me, goes something like this. This is where technology’s carried us, you see? Cyberspace technology like this has certainly nudged a lot of things into antiquity, regrettably. It hasn’t yet eradicated a 2000-some-odd-year-old Jewish ceremony or Djola folk songs. Instead, where the two have spent millennia running down separate roads, last night, they crossed paths. Maybe it wasn’t the first time, but it was an intersection, and a Hanukkah, that won't soon be forgotten.