Tabaski

Today was the celebration of Tabaski, the start of the new year in Islam’s lunar calendar. It’s also the day of the pilgrimage to Mecca, so the Arabic channels on my host dad’s tv have been all Hadj (the term for the pilgrimage) all the time. Quite an incredible act of faith – the zenith of a Muslim’s spiritual life. So anyway, for the fete…. (celebration in French. The fete is called the fete of the sheep because it coincides with story about Abraham being willing to kill his son, but then God provided a sheep instead. Pretty fascinating that the story is in both the Bible and the Koran.) …everyone gets dolled up, eats a lot of dates and cookies, and kills a sheep. My family bought their sheep yesterday and tied him to a tree, where he stood patiently awaiting his slaughter. My sisters thought it was hilarious when I said, “Poor sheep, we’re going to eat you tomorrow!” Apparently they don’t talk to animals much here.

I missed the actual slitting of the sheep’s throat. I kind of wanted to see it, but there will be other opportunities. However, I was present for the skinning and hacking up of the sheep. I wanted to watch because people have been killing and eating their own animals for a million years and it seemed pretty outrageous that little American me had never seen it. It really wasn’t too gross. The only part that made me gag was when they cut open the belly and all the guts fell out with this glopping sound. Honestly, when they hacked apart the ribs with their handmade axe, it made me daydream about a big plate of barbeque and a cold beer.

At my sisters’ insistence, I bought a voile for the fete. A voile is a long piece of fabric that you wrap around your waist then up over your head- you’ve probably seen muslim women wearing them. Mine is light green and has beautiful embroidery at the bottom. So, yes, it’s pretty, but impossible to figure out. I finally ended up raising my arms above my head like a little kid while my sisters tucked and pulled and draped. The result elicited shrieks of joy from my sisters and muttered “KaiKaiKais” (the Chadian equivalent of “wow!” or “holy crap”) from my bros and cousins. I went to go show my host dad and uncle (with a procession of siblings behind me giggling) and it was impossible to walk in the thing! I had to take tiny little steps and it kept falling off my head. Still, it was fun and my family really got a kick out of it. I really only wore it for about 5 minutes because it was so annoying but it was enough to satisfy for a day my sisters’ burning desire to make me become a muslim.