The story
Ngondo Cultural Festival in Douala/Wouri River
The Ngondo is the Sawa peoples' annual water festival on Douala's Wouri River, centred on a ceremony in which a devotee enters the water to seek blessing from spirits called miengu and reportedly emerges dry after hours submerged. Weeks of associated events - a district caravan, wrestling, a crafts fair and a giant pirogue race with crews of up to seventy - culminate around the first Sunday of December.
The Ngondo brings the Sawa peoples of Douala to the banks of the Wouri River each year in a modern organized form dating to 1949, though it draws on much older traditions of water-spirit worship among the region's coastal communities.