Tabaski and New Year's

Sunday, December 31, 2006

According to the lunar calendar that Islamic holidays follow, today was the celebration of Tabaski, or the feast of the sacrifice. The holiday is to remember Abraham’s trust in Allah and the eventual sacrificing of a sheep, which was supposed to have been his son instead.

Over the past few weeks, Dakar has filled up with sheep herders from all over to try and sell their “har” or “mouton”. In Dakar, the most bustling place for this selling is in a huge open space right down the street from my house. Temporary fences have been constructed, and thousands of sheep had been brought in. I wish I had taken a picture of the scene because it was a fascinating sight to see.

The purchase of a sheep is supposed to be done by all males who can afford it. During the time around Tabaski, the price of sheep increases and can range from 40,000 CFA ($80) for a young small one to 500,000+ CFA ($1,000). Because there is a need to purchase the sheep, cab fares and other prices that are negotiated can be more difficult to get a bare minimum price.

Once the sheep are had and Tabaski has arrived, they are sacrificed. In my family, it was very interesting. We had 3 sheep. A small hole was dug and the sheep were cleaned. After that, each sheep was laid and held down by the males of the family and then the sheep’s throat was cut by the male who purchased it. During this time, the females held onto the shirt of the male slitting the throat. I think the purpose of this was so everyone would be connected with the sacrifice. Prayer was also involved as well.

After the killing of the animals, they were skinned and butchered. It was a pretty interesting process. I must say that after seeing some of this, I have some new tailgating ideas for the 2008 UGA football season. The whole process took about an hour and 15 minutes, and the actual cleaning of the sheep was very labor intensive.

During this process, talibe would come by asking for handouts. In order to show respect and your own blessings, you provide them with pieces of raw meat. Also, other families would stop by providing portions of meat to show their thanks. Basically, when it comes down to it, a lot of meat was being exchanged.

Lunch followed shortly after the meat was taken off the grill and like other major holidays I have experienced here, the food definitely rivals Thanksgiving. For the meal we had a lot of meat, two types of salad, fries (helped cut the potatoes the night before), onion sauce, and bissap juice. We all seemed to stuff ourselves and I managed to take a good 3 hour nap afterwards since I could barely move.

In theory, the rest of the day is spent visiting friends and what not. Unfortunately, due to the holiday of New Year’s Eve, I dipped out of the Tabaski celebration and headed to downtown Dakar to be with some friends.

From my end, it was a pretty uneventful New Year’s and far from the fire walking night experienced last year, but downtown was absolutely insane. In the States, fireworks are fairly popular but can be difficult to get. In Dakar, they are more powerful and can be bought from just about any street vendor this time of the year. So, everyone was shooting off fireworks. When you consider that it was difficult to even move and fireworks going off all over the place, it kinda felt like a war zone. I ended up getting hit in the hand by one while my friend got hit in the face. I suppose the reason why it was so crazy and exciting was because it was something that you could never experience in the States. Uncontrolled insanity is the best way to explain it. Needless to say, I am looking forward to New Year’s Eve in Dakar next year.