Waay fate naa juli bi!

'But I forgot about the festival!' In all my eagerness to get down the gritty details of Tabaski and to convey some of the amusement that Senegal provides on a regular basis, I completely forgot to explain what the hell this festival is actually about. I'm getting that out of the way here and now, hopefully in not too many paragraphs.

Tabaski is a huge festival throughout the Muslim world, though I've heard that outside West Africa it is preferably called simply Eid Kabir, 'The Big Feast.' It stems from (and forgive me my complete theological ignorance) when that one famous guy (Ibrahim in Islam) in the Koran/Bible/Tora was told by God to sacrifice his son. However, just as he was getting down to do the dirty business, God pulled a little switcheroo with a sheep. I believe that Christians and Muslims disagree on the name of the son in question, but its basically the same story.

Perhaps because this story emphasizes the necessity of absolute and unquestioning obedience to God - and the word Islam means 'submission to God' - the whole Muslim world prays long at the mosque and then kills off quite a significant number of sheep to recognize the anniversary of this event. (Though in a classicly Senegalese turn of events, not every country agrees on on which day this anniversary actually falls. Apparantly it all depends on the moon.)

Tabaski morning, before any of the slaughtering began, I watched just about every man in my neighborhood - and quite a few older women - stride to the mosque in their newly-purchased finery. Prayer mats were laid out in straight columns marching out north and south from the mosque courtyard. Traffic stopped, and in the streets and in the sand men stood, bent over, and pressed their forhead to the ground to the muezzin's rhythm: Allah akbar! - 'God is grand.' The rakkas of the prayer were slower and more attentive than ever I've seen before. Half of the faithful then left for their relatives' houses, while the rest sat quietly on their mats and listened to the sermon read in Wolof. Thanks were given for the plump sheep, prayers made for peace and health and money, and a touch of advice added on how much to donate to religious leaders. Of course, missing among the faithful that morning were the thousands and thousands who had emmigrated from the city in previous days, to spend Tabaski with wives and family in natal villages.

Mixed into this idyllic picture are of course details of human vice and silliness: the purchasing of boubous outrageously beyond one's means in order to show that one has the means; the equally outrageous purchasing of sheep; the careful distribution of meat to the needy and the Christian in order to gaurantee success for the 'giving' family; the increased crime leading up to the festival; etc. But I won't spoil (or enlarge) this quick entry with that. Tabaski is really what Senegal is all about: eating a lot, visiting your neighbors and family, and giving of what you've got.

Here's a little Wolof wisdom to top things off: what to say when you've eaten too much meat.

Xar bi moy ma mbekk! - 'The sheep is butting me!'

and the response:

Bu la xar bi mbekk! - 'Don't let the sheep butt!'