I've become used to my newly multi-colored body. White (not black) skin, Perpetually rosy cheeks; freckly speckled nose; sandy, tanned legs gradually shifting from one shade of brown to the next, cranberry mosquito bites dotting my ankles and heels... A new addition this week: swollen, pulsing, purply-reddish, sometimes blue palms and digits. I've been drumming.

Our class gathers in an old schoolroom: 3 walls covered in blackboard and french cartoons explaining how to brush one's teeth, 1 wall covered in an impossible 15 by 20 foot block of haphazardly stacked (strewn in a vertical fashion) picnic tables, desks, and chairs. We circle in the center, 8 new drummers and 2 griots (those born into the lowest caste of Senegalese society...also the considered the most talented musiciens.)

The elder man starts beating the bass drum. The younger man with dreads smacks out a complicated mbalax rhythm. Or...arythm. My mind can't quite fit around the obvious disregard for 4/4 timing (let alone 2/4, 3/4...) Slowly our hands begin to mimic his. 9 different rhythms collide. Stop. Listen. The beat starts again. The mbalax commences. Our eyes squint at the movements of his calloused fingers, our wrists flick, we try again. No. Stop. Listen.

Stop. Listen. Stop. Listen.

The bass is louder this time. The ryhthm is slower, but still foreign (kind of like the wolof I tend to hear directed towards me these days). I close my eyes and listen. A song emerges. Not just beat, or rythm, but a melody of impacts. Like a heartbeat.

The djembe responds to the impact of one's fingers - receiving, then pressing back, throwing your hand back in the air. Gravity takes over and pulls the palm down for the next beat. Once you start the cycle, let go and the drumming takes care of itself.

We learned 5 traditional Senegalese rhythms and cycled between them. I was surprised how each felt oddly different from any beat i had ever experienced in my western musical training...and yet each was truly simple in nature. Children sing along to this music. Infants learn how to crawl, step, and eventually dance to it. Women hum it, and I've watched the maid fold the laundry to it's beat. There is a rythm to Senegalese life... I'm learning how to play it.