Tabaski! aka Slaughter-livestock Festival (…in Chinese) … aka Eid al-Adha or "Festival of Sacrifice" or "Greater Eid" is an extremely important religious holiday celebrated by Muslims to commemorate the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son Ishmael as an act of obedience to God, before God intervened to provide him with a ram to sacrifice instead.
Gambians celebrate this historical event by sacrificing and eating a Ram of their very own (or whatever animal they can afford), getting new Tabaski outfits to wear, eating a lot of delicious food, walking around talking and sitting with neighbors and the kids go out and ask for Salibo (a Dalasi or a candy or a prayer etc.). It is sort of a Muslim version of both Thanksgiving and Halloween, but carries the weight of Christmas. Sadly there are no sweet decorations.
Also, the meat of the Ram is divided into three parts to be distributed to others. The family retains one third of the share, another third is given to relatives, friends and neighbors, and the other third is given to the poor & needy. This is how I got my hands on some!
For several weeks before the actual day of Tabaski rams and goats and such start appearing out of what seems like the middle of nowhere (I think a lot actually come from Senegal). Everybody is getting ready to buy their sacrifice...
Me passing a goat/ram farm while in a Gele riding from Brikama to Fajara. These literally do not exist any other time of the year.
Typical butcher shops…. Oh my…
… that is a dead goat hanging in the front of the shop in case you want to pick up some dinner as well as your live goat
Goats taking over one of the Fajara car park - Westfield - Usually this is filled with cabs, Geles, people and vendors. Not goats.
All of the goats and people leave a little trash behind... not sweet
Leaving West Field. It looks better while walking away for sure.
To get the goats home sometimes they put them in the trunks of cabs... Obviously.
Fitting in goat number two. These people MUST be ballers to afford such an extravagance.
Can they get it shut????
Day of Tabaski! This is my new Tabaski outfit. I bought all the fabric and had it made at the tailor in Fajara. The tailors are jam packed before the holiday.
Black Fabric: 2 meters for D100
Pants: D150 for sewing
Color Fabric: 2 meters for D50
Shirt: D200 for sewing
Total Cost: D500 (aka $18USD) -- I went to a more expensive tailor because I wanted to make sure it turned out
Wearing asobe (outfits made with the same fabric) with my kitten!
Tobaski celebration at my house
So cute that I am making myself sick
Again with the level of cute leading to sickness
Even I am cooking something on Tabaski. I heart Chole (Indian dish).
Now time for the real fun… leading the Ram to the sacrificial hole in the ground
Making the hole deeper to hold all the blood…. With a machete!
Cute Ram! ...Yum?!
Getting the knife ready
Pinning him down so he is facing East
The cut happens quickly and they hide the knife from the Ram so it is more humane.
Now bleeding him into the hole in the ground. And I DID take some of these pictures.
Me and Mbosse staying a safe distance away from the blood
Hanging him to butcher
Butchering… or something like it
Im not the biggest fan, but don’t want to miss everything
Muhammed is not scared
They keep going
An hour or so later they and dividing the organs from the meat and blood etc.
It does not seem like they should put the head on top of the legs. Poor guy.
Lol. He actually called me out of my house to take this picture.
Cooking begins
Apparently the first thing you are supposed to eat on Tabaski is the liver of the Ram you slaughtered. Mbosse gave this to me and Kane to participate. Oh god.
Hes not happy…
I am not happy…
But we try it anyway…
Sigh…
Sitting outside and brewing Attaya with the neighbors
Also grilling up some of the goat meat while we wait for lunch
After lunch all the kids get dressed up and walk around asking neighbors and friends for salibo (A few dalasi or some mintys or you can give them a prayer which is hilarious because they can’t say anything but you know they are so sad that they didn’t get money or candy)
Foolay (one of the neighbor girls) getting her hair done before going out
Foolay all ready
Muhammad all ready (Mbosses son)
Im giving mintys to the girls
And Kane gives them to the boys
Taking surprise pictures of more kids. Most of them were too scared to talk to the white toobobs sitting outside even though they have no problem screaming for mintys every other day of the year. Go figure.
So Tabaski is only supposed to be a one day holiday, but there is some disagreement on which day it should actually occur. Half of the Muslims here want to celebrate on the same day as Mecca and they other half base the day off of the moon somehow. The reason that these two days differ is because Mecca sees the moon differently than The Gambia due to location… so when we start counting down to Tabaski and when Mecca starts counting down is not exactly the same.
My part of Brikama celebrated on Tuesday, but they other half celebrated on Wednesday. Because Kane and I could not eat anymore goat and we were pretty much stranded due to the unavailability of transportation we rode our bikes to the Tanji (A small fishing village on the water). It was about 25 miles total. It was fun… but now my legs hurt :( Here are some pretty pictures.
