Tegloma Goboi Descends on Washington DC

The Goboi and The Ambassador
On Labor Day weekend Saturday 2012, Tegloma International federation unleashed the organization's " Goboi" on an adoring and unsuspecting crowd in Washington DC and white Americans were dancing to Kposowa as if there was no tomorrow.

The Floating Goboi led by Attendants in Jeans

Tegloma Washington's cultural ambassador, the uniquely talented Osman Panda earlier gave a taste of what was to come by engaging in some majestic drumming that made me conjure the image of lying down in a hammock in my little village of Nyandeyama, chewing on a leg of native organic Sierra Leone chicken cooked in a pot of succulent cassavas leaves floating in a sea of fresh palmoil and occasionally punctuated by broad eyed beans.

The Goboi Must Dance

Later after a long meeting which was chaired with great gusto by Tegloma's eternally energetic Alfred Moi Jamiru, the night was for dancing and partying, under the watchful eye of Ambassador Steven Bockarie and potential repeat First Lady in waiting Francess Bio, Sierra Leone's former First Lady, who will be the only Sierra Leone woman to be First Lady times in the West African state.

Goboi Don Baranta

The party started with the great Steady Bongo of Mama Sayla and Makondor fame and he worked the crowd to such a frenzy, that the people kept asking for more. When Steady Bongo was exhausted and could hardly dance any more, the Tegloma Washington folks unleashed the traditional Goboi under the direction of assistant social secretary Musa Kamara and the Goboi effectively turned the Martin Luther King Jr. Hall upside down.

Goboi Being Decorated With Dollars

Having been born and bred in the fertile agricultural southeastern Sierra Leone city of Segbwema, I have seen many Gobois in my life time. I have seen energetic and wonderful Gobois , but never have I seen a Goboi as majestically acrobatic and well rounded as the one that Tegloma,unleashed on the warm September morning in Washington DC, right under the nose of America's charismatic president Barack Hussein Obama. 

 

The People Cannot Get Enough

There was even a moment when I though the Goboi was floating and I had to clean my glasses to confirm that I was not seeing an optical illusion.

A Majestic Devil

For many years to come the people of Washington DC will remember the weekend that Tegloma landed in the city, with their floating and acrobatic Goboi.