Tabaski: Fêtes des Moutons

BE WARNED: THIS POST HAS SOME NASTY PICTURES


Last Monday (the 7th of Nov.) was the Muslim holiday of Tabaski, the day of the sheep. It is a holiday to honor Abraham's obedience to Allah when he was willing to sacrifice his son, Issac. Luckily for Issac, Allah only meant it as a test, and told Abraham to sacrifice a sheep instead.

Wrestling match: getting the sheep to lay down..

Thus, if a family can afford it, a sheep is sacrificed to show deference to God. (All oldest sons can take a deep breath.) Even people living abroad will send their families money to buy a sheep and have it sacrificed in their name. 1/3 of the sheep is supposed to be for the poor, who cannot afford one. However, it is culturally essential that you sacrifice a sheep, so many families get themselves in a lot of debt to buy one. In Dakar, if you buy a sheep in the city within a couple weeks of Tabaski, even a medium sized one can be upwards of $200. Most people go outside Dakar to buy a sheep, so it is a sign of my family's financial standing that we got one huge ram 3 days before the holiday. My grandmother was given a big one the day before by her son. I don't even want to think about how expensive those must have been.

All the neighborhood boys wanted to participate-seeing as the act of sacrificing sheep are just for the men, they wanted in.

I think we were a little mean to our sheep. He was enormous, black and white, with huge horns. We named him Dinner, or Dîner, in French. He must have gotten some idea of what was going to happen, since whenever we walked past him in the courtyard he would give us an evil stare as we scratched him on the nose, telling him how delicious he was going to be.

Carnage...absolute carnage...

Tabaski in Senegal is focused around food and family, and kind of reminded me of our Thanksgiving. After sacrificing sheep and eating lots of mutton, everyone changes into fancy, new clothes and goes house to house. There is a specific set of greeting exchanges that need to be said whenever you visit family. They serve to show respect for family and are apologies/pardons from all offenses that might have come up between people over the year.

Little Helper...

The program of Tabaski was as follows:

8 AM: Wake up, eat breakfast.
As they men go the mosque, the women do some last minute cleaning. Usually only the men and old women go to the mosque, but my 16-year-old sister said that she used to go too. She's the only girl in her family, with 2 older brothers and 1 younger one, so her dad would take her so she wouldn't feel left out. This year, however, she elected to stay with her mom and myself in the house.

The Last Sheep...

10 AM: Let the slaughter begin. Men will come home and begin killing the sheep.
This is followed by immediate skinning and butchering. In my case, in the vacant lot right next to my house. The bodies were cut up with dirty knives, on dirty tarps, and the meat separated into dirty buckets. See a theme? But no worries, I guess they operating on a variation of the 5 Second Rule...the 1 Hour Rule.


The older women over-see the butchering process, shouting orders and making sure it's all done according to plan. When finished, meat is brought into the house for further "processing."

My host-mom making sure the butchering went according to plan.

Mildly traumatizing..

Concerned observers. Kim on the left, Lauren on the right.

Just a casual example of extreme cuteness amid the carnage.

Neighbor ladies, overseeing.

Waiting to wash up

The EYES. Creepy.

The women always looking beautiful

Our sheep, I think

12 PM: Let the cooking begin. While my sister and I cut onions, potatoes and measured spices, my mom was with us in the courtyard, separating sections of meat from the 7 (?) buckets surrounding her. While I was waiting for the oil to heat so I could begin making french fries (a total staple in Senegalese families) I helped her bag up sections of meat, my bare hands getting pretty bloody in the process. (Please forgive my lack of butchery vocabulary..) Legs and hooves in one bag. Intestine lining, testicles, heads, and something that I can't recognize into another. One whole bag was just hacked up fat. Smaller bags held chunks of what looked like steak meat. A portion of these smaller bags were set aside to give to the poor who came door to door asking for meat. The ribs and a few slabs of liver were thrown straight on the charcoal grill. The smell of fresh, grilling meat filled the courtyard, mixing with the smells of Awa and I's french fries, simmering onions, and lots of spices.

Buckets and buckets..

Heads, and something wrapped in intestinal lining..

Spice mortar and pestle

My sister, Awa, fighting a battle with the onions.

Bintu crushing spices

My mom, Khadji, starting the meat.

Passing the torch to me!

Helping my mom and Bintu sort and cut the meat.

I was in charge of the french fries!!

RIBS

Crushed garlic and mutton meat

2 PM: Lunch. And what a beautiful lunch it was. An entire platter stacked with mutton ribs and liver (the latter of which I avoided, though I have tried it before), a basket of cut up baguette, small dishes of mayonnaise and dijon mustard, along with a giant bowl of Awa's sweet onion/lemon sauce. It was a meal entirely focused around the meat. Though it made me homesick for my dad's Memphis dry rub ribs, it was still pretty good. My mom, uncle, grandmother, distant cousin, sister and I sat around the coffee table in the kitchen salon and devoured the delicious, hot meal.

Add some baguette, and the french fries, and this was our lunch

3 PM: After lunch, we cleaned up a little and changed into our Tabaski clothes. Everyone is obligated to wear new, traditional-style clothes for Tabaski. My mom was generous enough to pick out fabric for me at the market, then give me money to go the tailor and have something made. The night before Tabaski, she took my sister and I shoe shopping. The normally bustling daytime market had morphed into a night-time street party. Everyone was running around on last-minute Tabaski business, purchasing shoes, pillows, or anything else they would need. I detest shopping most of the time anyway, but I love shoe shopping at night, with speakers blasting mbala music across the crowd, and most of all, having a clear objective: get shoes and get out.


From this point on, we stayed in the house. The late afternoon was spent eating fruit, drinking sodas and, in my sister and I's case, napping. We both fell asleep on her bed talking about Tabaski traditions and history. It was quite an interesting discussion, actually.


6 PM: Family started to pour in. One minute were were sitting in the living room salon, watching the music video channel on TV. The next, 4 kids ran into the room, throwing arms around the nearest family member they could find. Their parents followed a step behind them, and the whole room kicked up the energy. Greetings and best wished flew everywhere, and somehow I was swept up in it all. Let it begin. Over the course of the evening, two more uncles (or maybe cousins) came over with their families, followed by a swirl of colorful clothes and more shouted greetings. Drinks and tea were partially my responsibility, so I was allowed to take a breather while the water boiled. Some of the family I had met before, and it was nice that they remembered me. It was interesting to talk to the adults, because my family is incredible. (I found out my mom's cousin, a man who used to live in the US, and did the WARP tour about 7 times, was the son of the Senegalese ambassador to China. He was pretty funny. One other cousin used to live in Spain, so we chatted about that. One of my uncles and his wife worked and studied in different parts of the US for many years, and had even been to Portland, whoo!) But it was the kids who I loved spending time with. They didn't know what to do with me at first, being the strange tubaab wearing African clothes. But I proved to be a child magnet, and we played games in the kitchen along, danced, braided hair, and generally swapped languages. A couple girls were about 12-years-old, and studying at a French-English bilingual school. They were so proud to show me how good their English was, and their father walked over as we were talking. "My girls are smart," he told me, bursting with pride when he heard us speaking in English and Wolof. "They will grow up to have good jobs, maybe ambassadors, maybe lawyers!" It was so great to hear that from a father, especially a father speaking of his daughters. By the end of the night, I had a child on each limb as their parents tried to get them out the door.

My uncle (Tonton Pape) and some cousins

"Who is this crazy American?"

Before the awkwardness was dispelled.. peace out..

My mom, Khadji, and my Uncle, Pape

Matching Bubus...the cuteness never ends, despite the Fanta mishap.

BLIND!

"WHAT-CHOO DOIN'??"

Our maid, Bintu, and my cousins

11 PM: We finished the night relaxing in the TV sitting room in the back of the house, spread out on the padded benches. My brain hurt. It was that simple. Between the slaughter and the blood of the morning, the cooking, and all the talking, I was done in. It doesn't seem that tiring when it's happening, but speaking in 4 different languages consistently throughout the evening with dozens of people had my brain totally fried. Mostly it was French and Wolof, but English had crept in there, along with the Spanish chat I had with a cousin.


 Tabaski turned out to be a wonderful, though exhausting experience. The value placed on family in this culture reminds me of home, and it surprised me to find that I did feel a part of the family. Everyone is welcoming and open, the kind of genuine friendliness that is the beginning to life-long friendships. It will be nice to have this experience in my memory while the American holiday season approaches, as it only serves to show the underlying similarities which stretch between cultures: food, family, and celebrations.




  “As the traveler who has once been from home is wiser than he who has never left his own doorstep, so a knowledge of one other culture should sharpen our ability to scrutinize more steadily, to appreciate more lovingly, our own.” -- Margaret Mead