Tabaski!!

What follows is the promised blog on Tabaski in Senegal, 2011. I had an absolute blast; I got to get dressed up in my best Senegalese clothes (which didn't look to ridiculous in this year, I think) and eat lots and lots of sheep.

Tabaski is truly the holiday of the sheep. Each family that is able kills at least one pretty big male sheep to commemorate Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son Ishmael when God demands it of him.  God intervenes, however, and offers him a sheep to sacrifice instead (for more information, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eid_al-Adha). So, Muslims around the world sacrifice male sheep on this day, share some meat with neighbors, and then, at least in Senegal, feast for days, weeks, months (!) on delicious sheep. On the day of the actual holiday, I had the honor of eating my host family's sheep 4 different ways throughout the day. I lost some weight just before the holiday because of my stomach bug, so this holiday really came at a perfect time. Nothing like 4 servings of sheep and french fries to help you regain those pounds! Here are some pictures from the day.

Tabaski, while a very fun holiday, is also a lot of work. My host family killed two sheep, and there is a lot of preparation and clean-up that follows this event, so people start their day very early. Not exactly like the leisurely Christmas mornings we have in the States. Anyway, as a result, this is a not-so-attractive picture of me sleepily washing out pop bottles to fill with filtered water to drink for the day. Killing, cooking and eating sheep makes you thirsty!

This is my host family sheep, clearly pre-sacrifice. He seemed pretty calm all morning; I guess its a good thing he didn't know what was coming.

This is my host aunt making a sauce for the traditional breakfast of Tabaski. I always forget the name, but its a sweet sauce made by mixing peanut butter with bouye, the juice made from the fruit of the baobab tree. It is absolutely amazing, and you pour it over the millet porridge eaten on special occasions called "laax." Only problem is, its absolutely delicious and super filling. I was stuffed by 9am and had four more courses of sheep to come.

Here's a picture of the "laax" cooking. Its a bit like oatmeal, but even more filling.

These are my two host cousins, just come back from the morning prayers at the mosque with their Pappy (grandpa). The matching mbou-mbous were adorable, and they were clearly so proud to be old enough to go the mosque with the adults.

Out of respect for the holiday, I'm skipping the gory details, but this is clearly sheep post-sacrifice. There were about 3 basins like this filled with meat from just one of the sheep, and my family killed two. People use and eat every part of the sheep except the horns and the hooves, which is nice to see. Very different from our sterile, Saran-wrapped cuts in the States.

This is the meat in action. It smelled so good!

And the famous Senegalese onion sauce that goes with the meat. This is probably an entire giant bag of onions chopped and cooked down for about 4 hours. The end result is the sweet and spicy sauce that you pour over the meat. Amazing.

So, the traditional first meal from the sheep is the liver, which we ate 2 hours after the "laax" around 11am. By 1pm we were on to the second meal, french fries (which when cooked in peanut oil are to die for), with the onion sauce, olives and the meat, of course. You eat this all with bread. These two platters were just for the kids and young adults.

By the middle of the afternoon, someone had essentially force fed me more sheep (I was so full), and then everyone crashed for a couple hours. So much cooking and cleaning! Around 6pm people started to wake up and get ready for the getting dressed up and visiting relatives part of the holiday. Here's me in my mbou-mbou with the boys.

Everyone is so beautiful on Tabaski. People have clothes made months in advance with really expensive fabric and tons of embroidery done by tailors who work sometimes all through the night in the couple days leading up to the holiday. The end result, however, is gorgeous. This is a picture with a couple of my host cousins. The tops of both women's mbou-mbous are all covered in embroidery. I went for a more simple route. My fabric already had the orange embroidery built-in, the tailor just had to make the shape for me.

Me and another cousin. She was absolutely adorable, and she knew it.

I visited with my host family and their extended family for awhile before going around the city to visit some friends. This is me with another intern from ASBEF, after we had just been fed more pop and fruit at his house.  The look on my face is one of extreme happiness and pain from the fullness of my stomach.

Me and two of my friends from MAJ. We had just come from Pape's house (on the right), where (shocker!) we were fed grilled sheep and onion sauce. It was so, so good but I was in a lot of pain by this point.

And finally, my friend Amadou and I at his house. At this point its almost midnight, and he was kind enough just to offer me some juice and then find me a taxi for the ride home. I was so full, happy, and pooped. I got back to my host family's house to pick up some stuff and see if my host sister wanted to go see Youssou N'dour playing at his club. But the concert started at 2am (a typical time for concerts to start in Dakar) and while we were waiting to go, I fell asleep on their couch. So, they just tucked me into an extra bed, and that is how my Tabaski ended. Quite a day! The rest of the week I had to go through sheep detox, eating only fruits and vegetables. But it was completely worth it. Deweneti!

Also, for a quick MAJ update. The International Conference on Family Planning is coming to Dakar in two weeks and MAJ is helping to prepare a lot of the pre-conference activities. I am helping them order and buy camera and video equipment so they can document the conference and MAJ activities from here on out. Also, we're working on creating an electronic database of all MAJ evaluations and reports on activities, so that MAJ can have a more unified and organized monitoring and evaluation program. With this, I am working with a couple ASBEF interns to create a bi-annual report of MAJ activities, with statistics of how many activities and people they've reached in the past 6 months. We're hoping to have this ready before the conference to show to potential partners in the field of reproductive health. And finally, the MAJ Twitter account is going strong! If you haven't already, please follow MAJ at:

@MAJ_Senegal

We'll be tweeting a lot particularly related to conference as we get closer. The more buzz that can be generated, the better!