Howabout I say "Happy Kourite!" instead?

Kourite

Experiencing a holiday that you never knew existed is bound to be surprising in some way. There seems to be a lack of logical progression in most holiday traditions, but Kourite (pronounced Core-i-tay) is surprisingly straight forward. It is the holiday following the holy month of Ramadan. I woke up to a very festive atmosphere in the household. People saying “It’s Kourite!” similar to a Christmas morning feel in the states. Then Moctar told me, “Come Stephen. Now we eat porridge!” I honestly don’t think I’ve ever had porridge, so I was reasonably excited. It was a kind of heavy sugar cream that you pour on top of couscous. Very good. Then, Moctar was kind enough to lend me an article of clothing known as (sigh) a bubu. It’s a traditional Senegalese garment. It’s not incredibly flattering but I think I pulled it off. The worst part would have to be the copious amounts of fabric used in the design, which caused body drenching amounts of sweat. During Kourite the men of the house go around and visit the houses of other family members so, after the porridge, Moctar, Cheick, and I hit the street in our bubus. Cheick is Moctar’s brother and took us on a four hour tour of Saint Louis. We stopped at all the houses of relatives of the family. I was shocked at how large the families are here. Because polygamy is common, and contraceptives aren’t exactly widely available, the result is an enormous extended family. We walked around to about 10-12 houses, and I was the only white person, so all the kids in the streets died laughing when the saw me walking around in a bubu. We met a lot of people, and I asked if they had a traditional holiday greeting comparable to “Merry Christmas”. Moctar told me that they traditionally greet someone on Kourite by apologizing for all the ways that they have wronged them in the past year. They actually say this when they greet each other (I found it strikingly similar to the Festivus tradition celebrated by the Costanzas on Seinfeld. The “airing of grievances”.) The trip was fun, but took a lot of walking stamina, and because of the sweating, by the end it looked like I just got off the flume ride at a water park. The women stay at the house all day and greet visitors. There’s also a big porridge exchange that happens at night and more porridge is consumed. I discovered that dehydration and vast amounts of porridge are not a good combination, and I started to feel sick. I told my family and they laughed and said it was all part of the tradition to eat way too much porridge. I didn’t ask them the following day if it was also tradition to spend a half hour vomiting the night of Kourite, but hey, there’s always next year!

Also worth noting. The family sheep survived the holiday. The family said it wasn’t big enough to eat yet. I actually won’t be too upset the day that thing dies. Recently it’s been sitting outside my window and bahhhing at me relentlessly. They asked me again if I wanted to do the killing when it was time, and well, the jury is still out.

Here are some pictures of the family that came to visit for some of the day. The big lady in the blue is the one that tried to marry me to her daughter.