Friday, November 26, 2010

Tabaski: Because Kids Haven’t Missed Enough School

Last week they announced that this past Wednesday would be Tabaski, the Muslim holiday celebrating that one time when Abraham almost sacrificed his son but then didn’t. Instead of slaughtering his firstborn, God said it’d be totally cool if he just killed a sheep, so he did. Thus, the celebration is alternatively called “The Festival of Mutton,” and the entire point of the day is to roast sheep and eat the meat.

I visited my host family that morning and watched them dismantle several dead sheep (sidenote: sheep have truly huge testicles. Terrifyingly huge). I was meeting some other PCVs (Kara and Scott) for festivities, so I left them to roast the sheep and promised to come back before I returned to village. Spent most of the day drinking (beer, wine, gin) and eating (fish, akassa, and because the people we were hanging out with weren’t actually Muslim, pork). It was a good day, not anything all that special in terms of Beninese fetes, but fun to hang out with Scott and Kara – they’ve both been in country for over a year, so they’re good at hanging out with the Beninese. Plus, they’re hilarious and really welcoming, so that was a definite positive, too.

After getting tipsy and eating pork, I returned to my actually Muslim host family (who participate in neither of those activities). I hung out with them for a bit, and right before I grabbed a zem to go to the taxi place, my maman handed me a giant bag of freshly cooked mutton to take home with me – every time I see them, they give me food. They may be in on the village mama’s secret plan to fatten me up. If you have to roll me off the plane in two years, I claim absolutely no responsibility.

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