Tabaski was December 9th (I've had troubles with slow internet and couldn't upload pictures here until now.) Tabaski is the local name for Eid al-Adha, or "Festival of Sacrifice" one of the most important Muslim holidays. It celebrates Abraham/Ibrahim's willingness to sacrifice his own son, and God's decision to give him a sheep to kill instead. So..... every adult male has to buy a sheep (for which they save money for months.)
It's also a time of asking forgiveness and starting fresh. So everyone says "Ba alma ak", which means "please forgive me," and wears new clothes and gives each other gifts.
All of our co-workers were pretty enthusiastic about inviting all the American and European volunteers to their houses; we went to Sadou's. We left our house at 8:30 am, feeling very self-conscious in our new boo-boos; but by the time we got to Sadou's we were feeling like royalty, as everyone in the streets was beaming with joy and pride seeing us in new Senegalese garb, and our taxi driver even told us we looked like a king and queen.
When we got there, we went straight to work - me cutting 25 onions, grinding 40 cloves of garlic, and peeling cucumbers, peppers, and potatoes, for which they let me borrow one of their old outfits (which I liked much better than my boo-boo).
Sadou told me that I didn't have to do anything, that I didn't have to 'go with the women', that he understood that in our culture women don't always cook. (We hear these things at gender-trainings at work.) The women (his mother, sisters, and sister-in-law) obviously thought the same (that 'western' women don't cook), as they truly were astonished that I knew how to cut onions and peel potatoes! They kept intervening to show me how to do it, and when I'd say "I know how, I cook" they'd ask incredulously "You cook?" and when I'd say "Yes, of course" they'd ask again, even more incredulously, "You cook, at your house???"
Sadou told me that I didn't have to do anything, that I didn't have to 'go with the women', that he understood that in our culture women don't always cook. (We hear these things at gender-trainings at work.) The women (his mother, sisters, and sister-in-law) obviously thought the same (that 'western' women don't cook), as they truly were astonished that I knew how to cut onions and peel potatoes! They kept intervening to show me how to do it, and when I'd say "I know how, I cook" they'd ask incredulously "You cook?" and when I'd say "Yes, of course" they'd ask again, even more incredulously, "You cook, at your house???"
I gathered that most toubabs (the word they use here for all Americans and Europeans) here have maids who do the cooking. The disbelief went on all morning as I finished one set of vegetables and started on another.
(This attitude isn't all that uncommon here or in some other countries I've been to. In many places Americans and Europeans are seen as helpless when it comes to everyday tasks and skills, since so many of them have 'help', or if they're tourists they often pay guides to take them around the country. It makes for pretty annoying, child-like treatment sometimes.)
Anyway, on to the main even of the day - the sheep killing, with which Jonathan had to help. Frankly, if you eat animals, you shouldn't really be all that grossed out. As vegetarians, many of our family and friends were horrified for us, but it really wasn't that bad - I tell them that blood, gore, and suffering is what I imagine every time I see a piece of chicken or a hamburger. It's not as if all the blood and bones and dying animals came as a surprise. But since the animals one eats in the U.S. are often slaughtered and butchered a long way from our eyes and minds, here's a breakdown of how it goes:
Afterwards we sat around and talked until Jonathan had to get back home to work.
(Below) Sadou and Jonathan talking about monogamy and polygamy. His father only married his mother, but his two sisters' husbands each took another wife, and his sisters didn't want to live in the same house with the other wives, so they moved back to their parents' house. One of the husbands sent a goat over.
For more pics (mostly of adorable kids)
