Drinking Dolo at the Cabaret

A vendor fills a liter bottle with fresh dolo.
Photo: David Noyes



The guys get together at Eugenie's cabaret.



The village of Zogore is split about evenly between Christians and Muslims. The Christians are further divided between a Catholic majority and a smaller Protestant population. For whatever reason, the Muslims tend to live in the outlying areas of the village, while Catholic families are more concentrated in the town center. Even were it not for this distinction, however, you can always tell a Catholic courtyard at a glance from the giant woodpiles stacked outside.

Aside from the usual cooking needs, the wood is used to brew dolo, the traditional sorghum beer popular here. It requires so much wood because after being crushed and ground into a paste, the sorghum is boiled for one to three days, depending on the preparation style.

After the boiling is finished, the result is a sweet tasting beverage called Razam, somewhat comparable to apple juice. Being non-alcoholic, Razam is ignored by nearly everybody save a few Protestants who don't drink alcohol but still like to hang out in the cabarets. Thus, to most if not all of this Razam the women add yeast and let ferment, creating beer, alternately known as ram, chapallo, or dolo.

When the dolo is ready, the women fill up big plastic trash barrels of it. A visitor here once asked if the barrels had seen previous use as garbage cans, but no- they are purchased new specifically for dolo. Villagers have no use for trash cans in the traditional sense. There is very little trash produced period, just the black baggies used to carry home items from the market, and the occasional packaging for household items like soap. And why bother filling up a trash can, which would just get emptied out in the streets and fields anyway? Instead the garbage just gets thrown on the ground directly, cutting out the middleman and leaving trash cans clean and shiny for beer brewing.

First thing in the morning, the women drag out the barrels and some benches to a shady spot outside the courtyard, and the cabaret is born. Nearly every catholic woman I know is involved in dolo production. They don't all make it everyday, rather, frequently it is a collaborative effort in which three or four will take turns brewing and then all sit around selling it, the profits going to whichever one produced it on that particular day. There are always a few cabarets open in the village, but the number increases dramatically every third day, which is market day. Sunday is also big, to keep the after church crowd occupied. And if market day happens to fall on a Sunday, especially if it is a special occasion such as the Bishop of Ouahigouya visiting, watch out. I had some trainees in town that particular Sunday and the facilitator nearly went mad with worry over the general boisterousness of the village, marriage proposals from drunken villagers aimed at the trainees flying around left and right, and so on.

Usually, though, the cabaret scene is geared more towards simple socializing than drunkenness. People start passing through around eight or nine in the morning, on the way to work, if there's work, or just for something to do. Arriving, you go around the benches and shake everybody's hand, be it your friend, brother, or uncle, and mumble a few words of greeting. Then one of the women will bring you a half filled gourd, called a calabash, to sample. The variety of tastes of the drink is remarkable, from cabaret to cabaret, day to day, and even morning to evening in the same cabaret, as it continues to ferment. It can be sweet, sour, bitter, or smoky, best when somewhere in between the four.

The dolo is measured in reused bottles. It costs 50 CFA, or about ten cents, for a 33ml soda bottle, 100 CFA for a 66ml beer bottle full, and 150 CFA to fill a one liter liquor bottle. If you are really thirsty, or are taking it somewhere to share with a number of people, you can get a two or four liter plastic oil container filled. With the exception of the little 50cfa portions, these are not personal servings- women will pour into the calabashes of everyone you are sitting with, and retrieve the bottles when empty. “Stop there, I've had enough!” customers will often protest in mock anger as their calabash is filled again, then finally relent and allow the woman to continue serving.

Hang out around the cabaret enough and you start to get to know the town characters. For example there is Julbert, the grey bearded retired school teacher, who loves to prattle on about American history: “George Washington, first president of the United States of American! Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth president of the United States of America!” The later in the day and more drunk he is, the longer he will go on. Sometimes he will even try out some of schoolboy English: “We weesh you a merry Chreestmas and a happy New Year!” Nevermind that it's April.

Another is Gimbo, who bikes around town pedaling a basket of dog meat, while all the living dogs come charging in from neighboring courtyards to bark and growl, and he just laughs. “The dogs know their enemies,” my friend explained with a shrug.

Conversation will drift into the weather, or village news, or, more likely, making fun of one another. There are a handful of jokes that get used every day, over and over, and somehow never get old. “Bob drank too much and he's going to fall,” or, “Bob drank all the dolo and now there's none left,” or “Bob has blurry vision so we're going to take him to the clinic and get him a shot in the head,” or maybe, “Bob says he is fasting but here he is drinking anyway!” Everyone has a good laugh, while Bob defends himself the best he can.

Gradually people start to drift off to whatever business they have going on that day. Frequently, they might pass again around lunch time, and again in the afternoon, to share another calabash if Bob doesn't drink it all first.

There is a frequently repeated stereotype of an African man blowing all his money on alcohol instead of saving for things like children's school fees and medicines. This can indeed be a problem. You can always tell when someone pulled in a big sum of cash by all the 500CA bottled beers getting tossed back at the only official, non cabaret bar in town. However, I would caution that the admonition doesn't necessarily apply to the cabaret-- you have to look at where the money is going. The Catholic men may be imprudently spending their money on booze, but that money is going directly to a population more likely to direct it towards more productive uses like school fees- ie, the Catholic women. In many cases, to the spendthrift man in question's very own wife. Husbands might receive the first free sample, but after that they pay 150CFA per liter just like everybody else.