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Horrific Comedy: Cultural Resistance and the Hauka Movement in Niger
Author(s) -
STOLLER PAUL
Publication year - 1984
Publication title -
ethos
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.783
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1548-1352
pISSN - 0091-2131
DOI - 10.1525/eth.1984.12.2.02a00050
Subject(s) - drama , comedy , portrait , art history , plot (graphics) , history , sociology , media studies , art , literature , statistics , mathematics
Few things can be more memorable than those occasions when everyday routines are shattered abruptly by shocking experiences. One of my most shattering experiences occurred in 1969 in the Republic of Niger. I had been teaching English in the secondary school of Tera, a town of 1000 in the heart of Songhay country. For three months my routine at the school was to teach from early morning to noon and then go to the dusty bar in town to drink beer with my French colleagues. The same routine was repeated at the end of the working day. We came to spend a great deal of time at Chez Jacob, the establishment of a Yoruba trader, one of the few nonEuropean beer drinkers in town. The beer was usually lukewarm due to the temperamental flame of Jacob's kerosene refrigerator.