Tabaski

Last Friday, October 26th was the holiday Tabaski. It's a big Muslim holiday commemorating the prophet Abraham demonstrating his obedience to God by agreeing to sacrifice his son at God's command. He blindfolded himself before going to cut his son's throat, but when he took the blindfold off he discovered his son had been saved and replaced by a ram. I got this from Wikipedia, by the way. Sorry if I'm wrong.

The locals celebrate by having a big prayer in an open space in the village around 10 am, which culminates in the sacrifice of a ram by the imam. Then everyone goes back home, and every family kills one ram for each wife. (Polygamy is a big thing here...more on that later.) A third of the meat is saved for the family, a third is given to friends and non-Muslim freeloaders like me, and a third is given to the poor who can't afford their own meat.

About a third of my village's population is Muslim, the rest being either Protestant or Catholic. I asked one of the village vieilles (grandmas, basically) that I sometimes talk to if I could go to the morning prayer with her, so she agreed to take me along. Later in the day, I biked to Kaya, my regional capital, where my school principal had invited me to celebrate with him and his wife.

It was an interesting day I guess. Mostly it was filled with even more awkward moments than usual. Frankly I felt a little let down by the celebrations...I was expecting more partying and abundant/exciting food, but it was actually pretty quiet. The food was not bad, but nothing that exciting.

Procession toward the prayer site

I started the day by meeting up with Alimata, the vieille who agreed to take me along, at 9 am. I didn't have a scarf that I could use to cover my head, so I brought a brightly colored bolt of fabric that clashed horribly with all of my clothes but was the only thing I had, and she helped me tie it on. From the market where we had met up, we made our way slowly to the prayer area, stopping along the way at the houses of their Muslim friends. At one point we saw the village chief sitting in a chair, and he motioned for me to come over to see him. I started walking toward him. Then I remembered I was supposed to take off my shoes when I approached him so I did that. Then I was walking toward him, but there was an old woman also approaching him, but she did so crawling on her elbows and knees. Gah, was I supposed to be doing that to? So I kind of backed up and then did the same thing. Then everyone who could see me started cracking up. So awkward. Then the chief said hi and wished me a happy holiday and excused me. Oh come on. But I asked Alimata later if that was really what I was supposed to do, and she said yes, so whatever.

Around 10 we finally made it to the prayer site. All of the men were up in front, and women and children were further back, separated by an open space. First everyone sang a song, and then everyone went through a series of motions for about 20 minutes that I kind of followed along with. Presumably if you were up in the men's area there was more explanation. But whatever. Then we sat there for awhile. And then the men were still doing something, but suddenly all of the women and children broke off and started chatting and dispersing. Vendors sold sachets of ginger juice and fried dough balls. Huh? Then we left and I went home.

From the women's area, you can see the men in the distance

That afternoon, I biked 30 km to Kaya, my regional capital. I made it in about an hour and 45 minutes, and then headed to the Proviseur's (the principal) house. He has a nice house. I hadn't seen it before. His wife lives there with their 2 year old son, and he goes there to stay with them on the weekends. When I got there, it was just the 3 of them plus 2 of their friends watching a soccer match on the TV...they gave me some food and a Coke (I guess you can't drink at a Muslim holiday party), which was good I guess. Having ice in my beverage kind of blew my mind. The food was reasonably good although not super exciting. 3 other teachers dropped by later, as did some other school-related people I hadn't met before. By 6 pm, it was evident that it was about to start storming, so I left the party to stay at the house of another volunteer. I don't know what I was expecting, but they were just kind of sitting around...and eating, but not that much...Oh well. It was amusing to see the Proviseur's interaction with his son; I hadn't seen men interact with their young children before, and it was pretty cute even though the kid was a little brat.

I don't know how to end this post. Culmination of the weekend: realizing how ridiculously excited I was to be eating meat, first of all, and that was less than half gristle. I guess I've changed.