le 17 novembre

Two missed items from yesterday:
1) During run in A.M., there was a mist in the town. It was really cool. Reminded me of the Corbett ranch in Oregon, how the mist would hang in the valley until burned away.
2) Super pumped to have taught some kids duck, duck, goose...here I call it farkay, farkay (donkey in Zarma), fegee (sheep). Kids pick up games pretty mad quick.

Tabski Day 1 "full" recap

Had been apprehensive for two full days off. Sometimes extended time at home with family stressful. But, today not so...

Woke up 6 A.M. Baby cermenony to start at seven. At 6 A.M it's stil pitch dark. Was excited, thought my short run might allow me to see the sun come up, but...nope, too early. Felt I was late as lots of people in our concession and shaved quickly (woohoo mirror, but I still hate shaving) and super quick shower. Tried to greet everyone. Here's what I observed for the ceremony: everyone milled around. There were lots of chairs out. At one point, we made a motion or two like the begining of the prayer motions. Someone killed a sheep off to the side. Some food came out. Coffee came out. People milled around and left. Wtf. Talked to my baba about it later, here's what I think happens. The parents know the baby's name, but no one else. There is some religious dude, who maybe announces the name to the whole group, that's when we make teh hand motions, and apparently when the dude says the baby's name, someone kills the sheep. I had no idea it was this orchestrated.

We milled around. The kids took me to get some chickens. They were in a separate concession. The kids had to chase them around and catch them by the feet. They are quite adept at this. I wanted to dive in, but was dressed nicely, in white pants, and didn't want to be dirty. I got to carry one back and felt awesome...little did I know it would get even better (read on...). Around nine, we went to this field place for a whole community prayer. Think Christmas and Easter when all these people go to church who never usually do. Not quite like that but kinda. I again attempted to pray, which went ok, but I felt I squeezed another dude out trying to share the mat with my baba and kayne (recall, here it means younger brother) so I felt awk.

Came back home. Milled about. Random girl around I don't recognize. She is Japanese, in Japan's version of Peace Corps and the town we train in is here site. She says her English is better than her French, but we chatted off and on in French and Zarma. This way we struggled together and the kids could understand. It was kinda fun, kinda odd, kinda awk to play kinda host in a setting I'm not entirely comfortable in. Made me feel cool though. She's the only volunteer in the village, so I figure we should reach out to her until we leave, ease the transition for her. We can empathize, since we will be the sole volunteers in our village as well.

Some background. Tabaski is a Muslim holiday that occurs 70 days after the month of Ramadan (during which Muslims fast during daylight hours). It celebrates Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son (from what I remember from the Bible it was  Isaac, I thought someone here said Ishmael, but Islam follows the Ishmael line so...I dunno) following god's request. I don't remember exactly what happens in the Christian verion of the story, but in the Muslim version, at the last minute, an angel comes and replaces his son with a sheep so Abraham's son is spared. My Christian readership should recognize this story. So on this holiday, Muslims sacrifice a sheep. If they can afford it, they sacrifice one for their family and one to share with the poor...or something like that. Since today was also the baby naming ceremony (always a certain number of days after the baby is born...somewhere between 5-7, confidence interval 90%), my fam was to sacrifice three. One was done in the A.M.

Baba was making the rack thing to cook the sheep over the fire and I wanted to try to help so I kinda helped dig some holes. Then baba was going to sacrifice the first sheep. It was pretty hilarious, He literally asked his wife, "Where are the other men?" And there was no one, so I was in the right place at the right time, and so I got to hold the sheep down with one of his younger sons, while baba slit the sheep's throat. This is a tad tricky because the sheep, although three legs are tied, thrashes strongly in it's death throngs. Also, I was impressed how cleanly baba made the cut, considering the dull machete blade used. I almost offered one of my knives at various points during all this cutting stuff. Then I helped move it. And helped hold down the second one. And move it off to the side again. Baba digs a hole to hold the blood and the throat is slit so the blood comes out in one direction, poss using the machete to help direct the blood into the hole. A pretty straigtup practice. I was super pumped for getting to be a part of it. Hopefully I'm the only trainee to have been so much hands on, just so I can feel special.

Then, these dudes came to...what would the proper term be? Skin and gut the sheep? So that only the meat is left on the bones. All the organs are saved and cooked, the skin is used for prayer mats, bags, belts, etc., and I'm not sure what the bones are used for. I thought someone said the head is put in a soup. I'm not sure of the logistics here. I was thinking Temple of Doon style. One woman told another trainee the fluid in the stomach can be used to treat skin issues or as like a muscle rub and she was stepping in it to help her sore feet...we decided this is a terrible idea. Two sticks are pushed through the carcass in an "x" and this is leaned on a kind of rack. A fire is made many feet away and slowly moved closer over the course of six hours or so so that the meat is essentially smoked and slow cooked?

Now, I imagine some fans at home may be like, say wha? But I figure I can't be squemish about this stuff since: 1) my boy Jeff in med school disects cadavers 2) this is how we get meat one way or the other 3) this is how people have and people in rural areas still do get meat. But I still feel pretty cool for being close to the action.

We had lots of food. Some trainees came over my place following their mothers. Gender roles clearly split here. Women all sit together and cook stuff, talk...uh, I didn't see what else but they do EVERYTHING except for the short list the men do. The men do the stuff with the sheep and...make tea (sometimes). Again, I adapt to doing basically no work way to easily. After lunch, I left my concession to walk around with some other trainees. We visited one couple's concession, talked and had some food and tea. Then visited another concession and talked and had lots more tea. Tea here is from China. It's skillfully made and apparently chalk full of caffine and amped up with heaps of sugar. It is served in three rounds of shots...not a cup full, and I think that says a lot. The same tea leaves are used for all three rounds, so the first round is the strongest and the last round is like kids' temp level of caffenine I guess. It tastes good though.

After several hours of talking and tea, I was mad full and wanted to get back to my concession. I had been worried about being overwhelmed with kids and stuff, but it's actually real chill. I enjoyed my time just hanging out at home. I think the holiday parrallels, without the religious stuff, Thanksgiving pretty well. About eating and visiting family and friends. It was fun to visit other people's host family's, but like at my U.S. home, I felt loyalty to my own home, maybe for the first time here, and wanted to return. How can anyone refuse a day (here two days!) of just relaxing (fulanzam), hanging out, and talking (fukara).

After dinner, most of the trainees gathered in one of our concessions for a dance party. I was super pumped (not just because my radio purchase of yesterday worked, with addition of the needed cord and needed iPods), but was soon balls, balls tired. Also, as of last night, when I didn't even do that much talking, my voice is gone. Can barely talk now. Excited to be back to feeling 100%

Tomorrow, I am going to try an Easter egg hunt kind of thing with the kids. And I will talk about how Tabaski is also like Halloween with a sort of Trick or Treat.

Oh, did I mention I played musical chairs with some kids this morning. They loved it. Again, picked up on it real quick.

I'm still a bit of a jerk for not breaking out my camera in front of my fam. For pics of the baby, pics of the holiday. I even passed off the batteries I bought for the radio to someone else so I didn't have to walk into the concession with them and make a spectacle. I just like to avoid issues if possible. Defensiveness is really a barrier to integration and it's a constant battle, since we are in such a different, and for us, unpredictible environment.

Today, my prior apprehensions unwarranted. I like Tabaski. Made me think of all you some. Will miss spending time with MY family and friends around the holidays. In these kinds of situaitons long enough and you almost forget that I have people and places where I am totally comfortable, just like being in these situations all the time can lead you to forget there are an infinitive number of situations that are not YOURS and in which you will feel, at least initially, unfomfortable.