Sorry Sheep...

Tabaski finally arrived last Tuesday, the much ballyhooed sheep killing holiday. Three sheep were killed at our house in the morning, and right afterward, the bodies are taken up to the roof to be butchered. Moctar was telling me that there is sort of a race between all the nearby houses to be the first one to be finished butchering their sheep, so while we were on the roof, we could see all our neighbors on their roofs and they were yelling taunts about how much of their goat they had butchered already, and were holding up sheep body parts triumphantly. I took a video of the third sheep being killed just so I can show others what the experience is like, but the internet connection here isn't stable enough to upload it, so I will wait until I come home next week to put it on the blog.

At the Vito household, there is usually less blood during our holidays. I mean, there’s always some blood, just…less. I was a bit nauseous after watching the three sheep get butchered, but I did have some of the meat at lunchtime. It tasted ok It was kind of surreal because I had just been petting the happy sheep about and hour and a half before. They use all the parts of the sheep too. The head is used to make a kind of brothy soup and the intestines are turned into a special dish. The skin of the animal can be sold to people who make rugs, drums, and blankets, so I was pleased with the fact that they used all the parts of the animal they killed. Food is prepared about every hour, and all day is spent eating. Friends come to visit and the talibe children in the streets are allowed into the houses to partake in the feast. After my third or fourth meal (in addition to the meat, there is also a lot of onions, rice, potatoes, and olives), I went out with my friend Delaney to visit some other houses, and my bubu (specially made for the occasion) got a lot of compliments from people on the street. That about wrapped up the holiday.

Christmas is celebrated here to a less extent than the US obviously, but the schools are going to be closed. I am coming home next Sunday for the holidays and coming back to Senegal on January 3^rd. I do really enjoy it here, but I am really glad to be going home to see everyone for Christmas. I was teaching my kids some Christmas carols on the guitar, and it’s just not the same singing “Jingle Bells” when it’s 80 degrees outside. Hope to see you all next week!

Here are some more pictures. There are some pictures of the butchered sheep at the end, so don't look past the second picture if you don't want to see it.

Me eating with my host brother and sister and Delaney (Portland)

At the mosque in the morning. Moctar took this picture.

The little ones learn how to butcher from watching the parents.


Edible parts of the three sheep. These are actually the same buckets I wash my clothes in...

Sheep Shopping

My family wanted three sheep for the holiday Tabaski, so we went to the sheep market on Monday night hoping to get some last minute deals. My host brother Moctar is a bachelor, so he said he didn’t need to have a big sheep, but my other host brother, Cheikh, is married, and it is expected that you bring home a healthy sheep to your wife for Tabaski, so there was some pressure on him. Leaving the house had a feeling similar to the we-are-going-to-get-a-christmas-tree feeling for Christmas. We walked to the sheep market which had thousands of animals. They were arranged into clumps of about 10, each one governed by a shepherd. Shopping with me was probably not the best idea, because they assume all white people have a lot of money, so when Moctar or Cheikh would ask for a price, the shepherd would say a price that was too high and say that since they were with a toobab, they could afford it. One shepherd told me I was the only white person he had ever seen shopping for a sheep. I did feel really out of place, and I started to hang behind my host brothers while they haggled for a price so the shepherds wouldn’t think I was with them. Just some random white guy…checkin’ out the sheep. I know nothing about sheep and had no intention of buying one, but after the two hours we spent looking around and getting prices, I started to be able to size up and guess about how much a sheep would cost. The average price for a sheep is about 80 dollars, but it all depends on size and health. I was bored for a while and amused myself by asking random shepherds how much money their biggest sheep costs. Then I would pretend to haggle for a while then walk away. There is also an inspection process where you walk around the sheep and slap it a little, get it to move. It’s kind of like kicking the tires on a car. I did feel kind of bad for the sheep just because they are treated like objects instead of animals. Sometimes you can tell they are clearly in pain, but the shepherds just keep whipping them. Also, after they are bought, they are incredibly intractable when taken away from the shepherd. I can add “sheep wrangling” to my list of “things I didn’t know I was bad at until I moved to Senegal”. They just don’t want to move and are surprisingly strong. Thankfully, once we got to the road we hailed a taxi. To transport the sheep back to the house, the legs are tied together and they are put in the trunk of a taxi. It is inhumane, no doubt, but considering it took me 20 minutes to drag the poor thing about a hundred yards, the trunk ride was probably less painful than me dragging it the remaining half mile home. Also, I can’t really cast blame, because I’m sure I transported my little brother in the same fashion at some point in my childhood. Now there are four sheep behind our house. Three are getting the knife tomorrow morning. Moctar says he will spend the day separating the meat from the organs. Ahhhh the holidays…

The Kindest Mob

The striking at school has become more aggressive in the past few weeks. Often, when there is a student strike, the students go to nearby schools and try to get those students to rally behind their cause, in order to put more pressure on their own administration. Recently, one of the strikes turned violent and some students were getting into fights with police. I’ve tried to find out the reason for the striking, and the reason is dependent on who you ask. The teachers told me the students are striking because there is an upcoming holiday (Tabaski) and some people need to do some traveling to see their families and want school to be closed. However, I asked some students why they were striking and they told me it was because the school had promised them scholarships and then not provided the money. For whatever reason, school is chaotic. On Wednesday, I was helping one of the other teachers give a test and about a half an hour in, we heard a yelling mob approaching. I gave a look to the other teacher (Mr. Sow) who gave me a shrug and just said to try to give the students as much time as we could. It’s kind of scary hearing an angry mob approaching, and I asked Mr. Sow if the door had a lock, and he said it wouldn’t matter. About a third of the class was finished when the mob finally made it to the door, and Mr. Sow was able to stall them for about 10 minutes, telling them he was giving a test, and just needed a little more time, then they could strike to their heart’s content. Well, finally the strikers poured into the room and started running around yelling (although they were full of energy, the mob did seem rather amiable. I recognized some of the students from my summer school, and they were very nice to me. They were screaming and yelling and throwing papers, then they would stop and smile and politely say, “Bonjour, Stephen!”). Mr. Sow and I were running around trying to collect all the tests before the students left. I got a wad of papers, hopefully everyone has something I can grade, but how can one be expected to perform on a test amidst an ensuing mob? I think I will grade them rather graciously. Can you imagine taking a failed test home to your parents and them saying, “Explain this grade, mister.”
“It’s not my fault, Dad. There was an angry mob in the class!”
“No excuses. Go to your room.”

Mr. Sow invited me back to his house for tea after class (tea is a traditional, social thing here, and people always invite everyone over for tea. The tea is served in something the size and shape of a shot glass. It’s incredibly strong and sugary. Personally, it’s not my cup of tea (sorry, couldn’t resist) but I drink it to be social and amicable) and had a chat for a while about the upcoming holiday, Tabaski. The story behind Tabaski is actually a version of the Old Testament story of when God asked Abraham to offer his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice. Just before Abraham is about to kill Isaac, a ram is provided so that Abraham doesn’t have to kill his son. So, on Tabaski, everyone kills a sheep to symbolize Abraham’s faith. They are planning to kill three sheep at this house. Both of my host brothers and my host mom all have a sheep, so now we have a small menagerie behind our house. However, shockingly, the one sheep that our family already owns, the most annoying thing on four legs is going to survive the sheep slaughter. I asked my host brother and he told me the sheep was still too small, so it will wait for next Tabaski. If I don’t kill it first, that is