Tuesday night / Wednesday morning. The day of the big ‘fête de Tabaski’. I’m in a bus with 34 other people underway to a small village some 2 hours outside of Dakar. The trip in itself, as the majority of the Senegalese are at the same time trying to get out of Dakar to visit their family for this religious holiday, takes more than 6 hours, as Dakar’s famous gridlock reaches a peak. Even now, people are still ferociously negotiating the prices for the sheep who will not see the light of the next day, adding to the bustling and nervous atmosphere on and next to the road.
I don’t mind the long trip though, and as Placebo’s ‘Bitter End’ pops up on my iPod, it brings a smile to my face: “as you’re walking away, reminds me that it’s killing time… on this fateful day”. I’m counting sheep to fall asleep, as I’m not sure there will be many left after tomorrow.
The day of Tabaski, I celebrate with my friend and his family in his village close to Diourbel. From the get go, I feel immediately at home, as everyone from the family and the neighbourhood comes to greet me and welcome me into their homes and the neighbourhood.
First order of the day is the inevitable slaughtering of the sheep. I was half expecting it to be a massacre, but I’m surprised to find the animals already dead when I arrive, with only a minimum of blood around it. Skinning and preparing the sheep then takes up the good part of an hour, as jokes are being told and stories are being shared. I was not expecting to be this comfortable around the sheep and the machetes/knives., yet I am. A moment of sheer beauty arises, when, while skinning one of the sheep, my friend points out something gooey to me between the skin and the bare muscle: “this animal was beaten by its owner”, he says. His friend, helping him in this whole preparation process, replies something in the line of: “Yes, some people treat their animals badly. Poor animal.”
The following five minutes, no one says a word, while they continue with skinning and cutting up the dead sheep. The silence says enough.
The rest of the day consists of eating and resting, followed by a walk around the village to greet everyone, and more eating and resting. Everyone can drop in everywhere and partake in a meal. This is real hospitality and openness towards friends, family, and neighbours. Having grown up in Europe, this is something that I still, even after my time in Mozambique and Senegal, find wonderful and incredible. More than once, I hear the people shouting out whether the toubab (white person, aka me) is eating enough, while they continue to push more meat my way. Also when I ask whether I could contribute in any way possible – helping cooking, buying more onions, … - it immediately gets refused because I’m not even a guest but a part of the family.
After having said my thankyous and goodbyes – smiles, hugs and handshakes – I take an early bus back to Dakar the following day, but not before the family manages to give me another bag filled with sheep meat – in case I get hungry underway.
Wonderful.
(pictures to follow shortly)
Looks like a great day. Peaceful. I guess that, despite the novelty f the ritual, in days like these that one realizes that humanity, like the sun, is the same everywhere in the world. You just have to look up enough.
ReplyDeleteWaiting for the pictures!