South Sudan's Next Top Model

Ngakidamdams are Toposa celebrations, and most of the time they make absolutely no sense to our team. The things that seem to be fairly consistent are special clothes, whistle blowing, and a lot of jumping up and down in a big circle. Sometimes other things are thrown into the mix, like gunshots, killing a bull, or my personal favorite, switching up the time and doing it in the middle of the night at max volume. I love staying awake all night to gunshots and singing! Not.
Christmas is an especially popular time of the year for ngakidamdams. There will be a big one on Christmas day, plus apparently they like to practice because there have been large ones the last two days. On Thursday night some of the girls who were returning to their villages post-celebration stopped by our gate to show off their moves. Half hilarious, half totally ridiculous.

 Normally the girls wear cloth skirts and a wrap and don't all look the same, but because they had been at a ngakidamdam they were wearing their party outfits.

 You know you're jealous you can't pull off this much attitude in one outfit.

 The short "skirts" are made from shells that are strung together, and these are for really special occasions. We think Christmas was the reason for these skirts, but maybe there was a totally different reason they were celebrating that day. The long green skirt in the middle is the normal ngakidamdam skirt. It's made from goat skin and has yellow and green beads stitched into it.

I'm loving the ear-to-nose ring. I think it really completes the look.