Tabaski and I go back to 5 october 2014. A friend of mine invited me to his sister’s house and I happily said yes, not knowing what to expect.
I was imagining a Christmas-like kind of day: you eat a lot, you drink, you chat and then, when you can’t eat anymore you roll home and hit the sack. Easy peasy.
My friend came to get me at 11 am and the car was already bursting with food: mainly soda cans. There were like ten boxes of soda cans and huge bags of salad, potatoes and, it goes without saying, a pile of big bags of onions.
We hit the road (we were supposed to drive 30 km roughly) and we stopped five or six times to greet some friends and family along the way.
Each time it took minutes to just say hello (salutations in Senegal can take up to five minutes before you can move to the core of the conversation), they asked me if I were well, if my family in Italy was well, how did I like Senegal and did I speak wolof?
Finally, I was already exhausted and wouldn’t mind a drink, we got to my friend’s sister’s house. The house was almost done, but not entirely done, like most of the houses around that one.
Today I feel tenderness for the person I was ten years ago, when seeing a sandy road I used to think that people living there were almost destitute. They were lower-middle class who could afford to own a house in a suburb where the real estate value has gone up five times since the year 2000. And I was a know-nothing-who-thinks-she-knows-everything.
That day I discovered things that I was able to make sense of only years later. That day some of those things were shocking, some were disgusting and many others were surprising.
I found out that killing the animal, no matter how strong your religious motivation is, takes an emotional toll: nobody loves doing it, even though it is considered an honor. It is done as fast as possible, with the fewest possible people around and it does not get talked about. At all.
The goat is then handed over to the women who take care of the transformation from sacrificial animal to roasted meat. Every. Step. Of. The. Way.
The clang of the axes that hammer down on the thick bones is hard to “unhear”, also because the first pieces of meat get cooked right away but the remaining parts get chopped up over the course of the entire afternoon. The dull noise and the sounds of sheer exertion coming from the women chopping the animal take you from afternoon to evening.
I attended many Tabaskis over the years and yet the matter of the sacrifice itself is still hard for me to accept: I do understand the religious fervor that justifies the act, but I also think that in 2022 we could come up with a less bloody and more symbolic way of honoring Abraham’s leap of faith.
Anyways…that day, when it was time to eat I asked where I could wash my hands and I was pointed to a tap in the courtyard. Under the tap there was a bucket instead of a sink (common thing here so I didn’t think much of it), I opened the tap and as the water came out I discovered that the sink contained the mutton’s head. It was my first mutton head detached from the body, you would think it shocked me out of my mind but in fact my emotional immune system held up.
Fun fact (or not, depending on how cool you are): the mutton meat, chopped and roasted on the spot, gets to the table with quite a few hairs on it. I was explained that is the mutton’s hair that lingers after the action of the sacrifice and then land back on the meat, while it gets cooked. I know it sounds disgusting and horrific but, again, our emotional immune system operates a priority shift when necessary.
That day, I was bound to discover also that the gatherings my mom got us used to were my training ground for what I was meant to endure here. At least a hundred people came through the door, one third came and ate, two thirds came for the “see and be seen” greeting tour.
After the sacrifice, after skinning, chopping, roasting, eating and cleaning (at that point I was worn out without having done even a fraction of that), I realized that people had quietly showered and dressed, had put on perfume and make up and everyone was ready to go around the neighborhood to greet each other.
In less than a minute the merry-go-round was turning: people all dressed up were going and out, in the streets and in the homes, neatly bowing, waving, kissing cheeks and smiling.
Poor me, we were at the International Championship of Fashion and I was wearing a cheap-ish cotton dress that seemed like a good idea in the morning, but now looked like a PJ’s.
That day I learnt that in this country kids pop up from around the corner, they move in packs, and are not necessarily related with the grown-ups they hang out with. And, most importantly, when they shuffle from one house to the other, dressed up like adults, in holy days, they expect to be given change.
This propensity for cash still gets on my nerves sometimes, but Senegal is a developing country, less poor than others that is for sure, but still pretty poor. In the West, giving money as opposed to a gift reflects a lack of creativity and/or time. Here cash is still, no matter the social status, the favorite thing to offer and receive.
I was ready to go home, that night, at the end of my strength, when my friend goes like “We’re going for a walk”. (“A walk? Now? A walk where? There’s nothing here, there’s no light”. Still old me from ten years ago speaking).
Anyways, I went for a walk with them. There was not much light and the neighborhood was no Beverly Hills, but you know how it works when you are in the dark, right? Slowly but surely the shiny dresses became visible, I could hear the buzz of life, I could feel people hanging out just like on any Christmas day at home, chatting, laughing, screaming after the kids.
And I could see dim lights almost everywhere. It was the buutik! Bursting with people even on the day of the feast, buying last minute thing or a little snack, just in case you get a bit hungry after eating half a mutton.
Oh boy, that night I got home feeling inebriated without drinking and stoned without smoking, but lucky for me the day after the feast is a holiday.