Tabaski 2009

Well I just saw my first sheep slaughter. It is actually almost surprising that I have avoided seeing anything larger than a chicken killed since being here. I almost missed it because the kids called me over to see two dogs having sex. But then when I walked back I saw my host dad and his oldest son holding the sheep down, having just slit his throat. So I missed the slitting part, which is often the worst part because that’s when you see the animal fighting for his life, not wanting to die. Which to me is the most awful part of death: seeing something or someone struggle for life in the midst of dying. So they slit his throat pretty thoroughly and he was bleeding on the ground. There was no fanfare, I was the only one even watching. I thought he must be dead but then he started to kick and his body shook and his torso still moved up and down as though he were breathing or some great wave were going through him. His head hung limp and lifeless but his body still fought. It took a couple of minutes like that for him to actually die. Then they strung him up by his back legs to drain out the rest of his blood. I thought I was fine but then I felt sick to my stomach and almost like I might vomit so I went back to my house. Where I was promptly interrupted with the daily invitation to go have tea from Yusuf. I’ll go over there later.

So I don’t even want to see a cow slaughter. I can’t even imagine. There are volunteers who want to actually kill a cow themselves. I’m not going to name names but you know who you are! I don’t have that in me. I mean, in the States I am a freaking vegetarian. I don’t think I could even stand to watch a fish flip around on the deck of a boat, struggling to get back in the water. When I find mice struggling for their lives in a bucket of water, I have an uncontrollable urge to scoop them out and save them, even though I hate them thoroughly when they treat my house as their own all night. I am sometimes even sympathetic to ants or spiders who run for their lives when I start killing their friends.

So basically, I don’t know how much of our Tabaski sheep I will be able to stomach eating. That’s another thing I have fleetingly thought in the past: if you couldn’t kill it yourself, you shouldn’t eat it. It’s almost like cowardice in a way. I don’t know. I never had to deal with these moral dilemmas in the States because I didn’t so much as eat gelatin or lard (no marshmallows – imagine life without marshmallows! I have lived it…and still am, there are no marshmallows in Mali).

Anyway. Last night they stayed up pretty much all night. Yesterday evening as I was sitting by the cook fire reading my Water and Sanitation training manual (no, seriously, I was reading it – I am sooooo the model volunteer), I started to feel a little bit of a sore throat. I was like GREAT. And then remembered I don’t have so much as a vitamin C supplement, let alone Echinacea, Emergen-C or Elderberry (the things I rely on to keep me from getting sick when I start getting the first signs). That’s all in Guinea. There aren’t even oranges here. So I went to bed at 9ish or so but then got up at midnight to see what was going on, which wasn’t much – it was just people watching TV, listening to cassette tapes, sitting around fires, and cooking. The kids were all sleeping. So I hung out for like 45 minutes and went back to bed. And was then woken at 4:30 in the morning by a flashlight through my bedroom window and someone yelling at me to come eat. I am not very receptive to being jarred awake, A. B. I hate it when people look in my windows or try to talk to me through my window. C. I am sick (sore throat just kept getting progressively worse all night). D. I am tired because even the sleeping I HAVE done hasn’t been good because of all the radios and chatter. So I put my sheet over my head and told them to go away in English. Which they eventually did, after discerning that I was “full” and not going to come eat. Then a couple of minutes later I dragged myself out of bed because I told myself I should at least go see what was going on, even though there’s no way I could have eaten that early anyway. So I got dressed and went outside and it was completely deserted. I have no idea where everybody was, doing this eating. So a little annoyed, I just went back to bed and got up at my usual 6:30am when my bath water arrived.

It was a sort of riz gras for breakfast with a big chunk of meat (I think beef), a piece of bread and a cup of ginjam (ginger juice, which I am not a huge fan of but hot it was nice on my throat). A lot of people were bringing bowls of food over and putting them in one of the grandmas’ rooms. Soon after that, the most part of the women’s group came over and everybody ate again. I was full, so I didn’t eat, though I would have if there had been some basi or peanut sauce to be had, but it was all the riz gras-like thing I had just eaten so I abstained.

So then I just hung out while people were pounding millet and cooking and whatnot and that’s when they killed the aforementioned sheep. Then I went to my house for a little while but one of my moms came and got me and said we were going somewhere ELSE to pound millet. I’m not entirely sure what this was about, but the whole groupement went to this person’s house and pounded millet and pulled water. And it wasn’t even like it was a poor family, or a family that didn’t have enough women, it was just some family.

Of course right when we walk in I see their dead sheep hanging from it’s feet from their shade hangar. A man and a teenage boy are cutting its skin off. GROSS. Then they cut its head off. Then they start gutting it. And of course the chair they have sat me in is facing this whole display. Then they decide that I am sitting in the sun and need to go sit under the hangar so now I have the distinct privilege of sitting right next to the being-chopped-up sheep. Poor guy.

So after this we all go put on our first complets so we are dressed for lunch and after lunch we go hang out with the groupement and make tea and whatnot.

I don’t know, it actually wasn’t that eventful of a day. But I suppose it’s how they might see our Thanksgiving or Easter: you get a new outfit and go to Church on Easter (well, some people), you hang out with your friends and family all day and don’t work, and you eat a ridiculous amount of food ensemble. Kind of the same thing. Without the football. Actually, come to think of it, there WAS some soccer watching going on!! So holidays are basically the same thing everywhere.