Goat bollock, anyone?
Once the first round of formalities is out of the way, each family returns to its compound for the ritual slaughter of sheep – or goat, if you are of lesser means. We’ve been invited for lunch with Atemelou’s family in their home up on the side of the escarpment.
Before we head there, though, we gear up for the day’s second formal set-piece. This involves a tour of what seems like the entire village, meeting and greeting friends, relatives and respected elders to wish them ‘Happy Tabaski’ – carol-singing, African style, but minus the figgy pudding.
At the first home we visit, two sheep have just been slaughtered. One of them is still twitching, flies gathering in a patch of its blood that has soaked into the dirt floor. As we watch they are strung up, skinned and divided into pieces. At every home we visit from then on, we find sheep or goats in varying stages of butchery.
We’re also offered either ‘Dogon beer’, a milky, gritty brew, made from millet and served in a half calabash, or ‘sadina’, a sweet, brown liquid made from grapes. Neither are alcoholic (yet; sadina ferments after a day or two, as we later discover), but Atemelou warns us not to drink too much. “Sadina will give you diarrhoea,” he informs us. It’s good, and a welcome change from water, so none of us listens to him; happily, none of us pay later for our recklessness.
Hours and about 20 social calls later, we finally flop into Atemelou’s family house, well ready for some serious feasting. The women are busy preparing the ubiquitous rice and sauce, while the men are getting the fire stoked up to roast the goat. The meal kicks off with a delicious dish of the goat’s liver with onions.
As we wait for the next course, one of Atemelou’s uncles (or maybe cousins or brothers; bloodlines are pretty opaque in this part of the world) spots us eyeing the goat’s testicles, which are hanging conspicuously above are heads. “You want to try one?” he asks. “They’re good.”
Without waiting for an answer, he slices off one of the deceased beast’s family jewels and throws it on a little charcoal brazier, usually used for preparing tea. The testicle, about the size of a duck’s egg, begins to move on the hot coals, expanding and opening a little like a clam shell.
It looks anything but apetizing. But, when in Rome…; after being cooked so nicely and neatly sliced up, there’s no choice but to give the gonad a try. It’s surprisingly good – not like chicken, as most ‘exotic’ delicacies seem to taste, but more like, well, goa’ts bollock; let’s not pretend it’s anything other than the reproductive organ of a farmyard animal.
The next course is more conventional – rice, sauce and meat – but plentiful, and after feasting for about an hour, we waddle out, burping our thanks and goodbyes. There’s a long walk ahead to the next village on trek around Dogon country. Not a happy thought after putting down the closest thing Malians get to Christmas lunch.
Tags: Travel
djnorwood