Unembarrassed Celebrations

Whilst one of the top 5 reasons I love Belgians has to be their unique enthusiasm for the Scouts, another has to be that neither the rain nor politics stop them getting on with their lives. Belgium recently beat Afghanistan as the country to go the longest without a government. It has also been at least three weeks since Brussels has seen longer than half an hour of uninterrupted sunshine. Yet the National Day of Belgium went ahead all the same on the 21st July.

Place Annessens is a square where nothing normally happens, unless you want to buy weed. It's only 10 minutes from the fancy old Grand Place and the chic Rue Dansaert full of their Flemish hipsters and Spanish tourists, where every weekend stages are erected and dismantled for jazz concerts, city-wide cleaning projects ("Grab your broom and join the fun!" was the advert for the hilarious Journée de la Propreté). There was even an installation involving two sheep set up on the Place Saint Catherine the other day for the Festival des Arts.

Place Annessens stands as a grand entrance to a district rich in languages, cultures and exciting smells that waft from the windows high up in the grey skyscrapers. As soon as Aziz Sahmaoui & University of Gnawa took to the stage for the B United concert, people came out of their houses in spite of the rain: I even saw people in sunglasses, ha. It was great therefore to see this part of town celebrating being Bruxellois and Brussels celebrating this part of town! We got taught songs in Arabic and Wolof (I think!) about some of the 1000 tricks you need to know if you ever fall in love and that you need to dance to music you love if you ever miss home.

I once did a Contemporary African Dance class and was told confidently by the teacher that it is a myth that only Africans who know how to dance: rhythm is an intimate part of being human, as long as your heart beats and you skin falls off periodically. He also made us walk around the room with our eyes closed at the beginning of the class and to do a warm-up which involved a motion he described as "peeling the banana" though, so I'm not 100% taking his word on this one. I felt a bit embarrassed getting down on the Place Annessens surrounded by people who were seriously cool dancers. I then realised though that everyone was getting down, even a dog at one point.

If nationalism can be this proud of multi-nationalism, then I might rethink my suspiciousness of it. If rain doesn't need to stop play, I want to keep dancing!