The Day the Sheep Died
Eid al Adha is the Muslim celebration of the pilgrimage in Mecca tied into the time God ord
ered a guy to sacrifice his son and he was about to and then God changed the guy’s son into a sheep at the last moment. Here in Senegal it’s called Tabaski.
Normally you can sacrifice a sheep and one third has to go to you and one third goes to your family and one third to the poor. Here everyone eats mutton for Tabaski (rams) and I dunno if it’s the sacrificial lamb, so to speak, but there sure were a lot of them around as I walked about the day before Tabaski. I was expecting to have a quiet day the next day – maybe go to mosque and then back work on the boat bu
t, as Lipfi and I walked around, we ran into a guy, Cedou, that he you knew and we were invited around for Tabaski lunch. I took the opportunity to use Lipfi’s translation skills and find out what time Eid prayer was the next morning. Did I have a bubu? No, I replied, is it a must? Promptly I had an appointment to meet Cedou the next day at his house, get a bubu and go together to mosque.
The next morning I was in my bubu certain that I was depriving a circus of its tent but stoked to be in traditional wear nonetheless. Like the Eid salaah in Mauritania after Ramadaan, the gathering was outside in a clearing rather than in a mosque. It was nice, invigorating experience and went back to Cedou’s with him feeling… well, high on life.
Back at Cedou’s, he told me that its time to change back to my other clothes and we chilled for a bit and Cedou went inside to do s
omething. Well, I thought to myself, the bubu is off so that must be it, that was great and I now I can go back to the boat. Cedou came back in and made me realise that I needed to respect the day and that I absolutely ccould not go work. So I chilled, wondering why the day was so important but we had our bubus off.
Next time Cedou stuck his head in the room he motioned me to follow. We came to the lane where two guys were holding a sheep, whose throat they had just slit, over a pit for its blood to drip into. The first sheep had already bled most of its blood out and was lying to the side. Cedou motioned for me to take the hind legs and suddenly it dawned on me why I wasn’t wearing the bubu.
Yep, next we hung the sheep up from a tree and Cedou, me and another guy skinned it. Then it was chopping off the legs and putting the meat parts into one bucket and the insides into another. Next sheep, same thing.
Then the other guy went off to butcher the meat pieces and and me and Cedou were put on intestine patrol. If I ever have to butcher a sheep myself I’ll just throw the intestines away. Believe me it’s a shit job to clean the insides and I mean that literally. Luckily, I just had to pour water over his hands every time Cedou finished cleaning a part but I did have to dod
ge droplets of all sorts of stuff lots of times. Even more luckily, we got called away for the first of meals and I sorta avoided the rest of the insides story.
The first meal was the ribs barbecued. The second meal was little delicacies of liver and kidneys. The third meal was legs. The fourth meal was a meat and onion stew. Of course there breaks in between of tea and other people coming around and the ladies and kids doing their hair and getting all flamboyantly dressed up and Lipfi, Mina and Hugo arriving and teenie siestas. I’m glad I didn’t stay for the night meal because according my calculations we’d run out of the less freaky parts of the sheep to eat. Anyway the family was getting all primed for going around visiting the neighbours (and eating more mutton) in their finest.
It was a good day. That night was New Year’s Eve and some boat people had a supper at CVD that I ran into because I needed to get to shore to take a shit. A comparatively Western pleasantly bland experience but they did have fucking good chocolate cake and other desserts.
Then it was off to bed again, wondering what the new year would bring because last year was special and I hope this one is too.
Ghalied
January 9th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
Ahoy Bru It sounds like you having an awesome time experiencing all these different cultures and stuff. Live it up bru. All manne are talking about when you coming back, what you up and so on. I’ll convey the message to the manne about your meaty trip. Anyway cheers for now.