Thursday, November 18, 2010

so that happened....

yesterday was Tabaski. For senegal it is close to christmas.
let's just say....i miss christmas.

I woke up around 9am just like a good senegalese should on such a holiday, put on a wrap that went to my ankles just to be safe and walked into the backyard.
tabaski is a holiday where you eat all day so people get going on the food pretty early. 
i asked bineta if i could help with anything. she said no. then i asked my yaay who has been liking me lately. she said bien sur! and got me a bowl of big carrots and a peeler. i sat down with it and bineta looks at me and asks if i know how to use a peeler. thanks sis love you too.

so 10am rolls around and ousseynou says ok we are killing them now.
let me tell you about tabaski.
every family buys a mouton (sheep) and its a huge deal. some families buy one and some buy up to eight. also the sheep can cost anywhere from 30,000-100,000 cfa (500=$1)
so people save basically all year for this holiday, they buy their sheep get them fat and then slaughter them in the backyard.
so to do this, you dig a hole that is in the direction of mecca, and then you saw (not slice, this is important, its sawing) the sheeps throat so that the blood runs towards mecca into this hole. then you proceed to skin it, go psycho on the body with a machete and eveyone enjoys fresh mouton for breakfast lunch and dinner with snacks in between.

so just like any other muslim family the slaughter began and i got to watch it all. little gruesome. like i said, i miss christmas. but at the same time it was really cool to actually see the whole cycle of how the food gets onto your plate...something we dont see in the states.
but also sheep are not good. its like the fattiest meat i have ever eaten slash you can't find meat on the bones.
the testicles were sitting in a bowl ready to be eaten but he havent gotten to them yet. also there was some kind of meat that was wrapped in intestines that apparently we grill at some point soon. we will be eating sheep for days.

happy holidays everyone.

3 comments:

  1. sheep/goat sucks. i agree. try eating their tongue, trust me it's a whole lot of fun!

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  2. Testicles and sheep intestines. Maybe we should add that to the meal rotation for CranHill? Love you and miss you!!!!!!

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  3. Hmmmm. Building on Diana's thoughts, where should we dig the pit. Perhaps Sarah can figure out where it would point to Mecca. And, could we get fries with that?

    Sarah, we missed you so much when we were in NY last week. I wore your circle scarf, tho', so I felt kind of close to you.

    Love, Gma BE

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