Tobaski Madness

In every other part of the world this Muslim holiday is known as Eid Al Adha, but here in The Gambia, the holiday of the ram is called Tobaski. To sum up the holiday in the words of my host mother "you eat lots of meat...lots of meat, and then you put on a pretty dress." This story doesn't actually start on Tobaski, but two days before. That night Kane and Samantha had Ian, Chris, and I over for Americanized Domoda (domoda minus the palm oil and strange animal parts and added vegetables) and drinks. You would think that by now I would have learned that beer, vodka, and tequila is NOT GOOD FOR ME. Especially here. The only beer available is Jewlbrew and it's alcohol percent varies from bottle to bottle, the vodka is cheaper than anything you could find in the US, and the tequila was American, but when mixed with warm devita...not particularly good. So after many jewlbrews, a few shots, and a couple mixed drinks I was feeling great! For about fifteen minutes. The next morning, the day before Tobaski, I woke up, chugged some water and immediately threw up in Kane's toilet (thank god he is one of the few volunteers with an actual toilet and not a pit latrine) and then sat for a while trying to muster the strength to face what I knew would be one of the worst travel experiences I've had here yet. Keep in mind that the day before Tobaski is kind of like the day before Thanksgiving in America, but without the reliable and efficient transportation system. Everyone was trying to get somewhere else...including hungover me. So I left alone, walked down to the main road to get a gelly to Westfield. As I'm walking in the hot African sun, I pass a garbage dump on the side of the road, pause taking a few deep breaths, considering going back to Kane's house to cry in fetal position for the rest of the day, but then regained the little composure I could and kept on. I found a gelly going to Westfield fairly easily and mistakenly thought that maybe things that day wouldn't be so bad. Oh no...no, no, no.
We pulled over at the police station to pick up some cops who obnoxiously pile into the car, with of course the creepiest of the bunch practically sitting on my lap. From the moment he got in I could see him staring at me from the corner of my eye and could hear him talking about me to his police friends in Mandinka. He initiated conversation with me and since he was a police officer in uniform I couldn't just completely ignore him, like I usually would. Our conversation was as follows:

Him: Hello pretty lady. How are you this morning?
Me: Awesome
Him: What is your name? Where do you stay?
Me: Salimata, Brikama.
Him: Oh, Sali, you live alone there?
Me: No I live with a family, a big family...lots of brothers.
Him: Mmhhmm. And are you married?
Me: Yes, he is American, he lives with me too.

--You'd think this would slow his game a bit, but NO. Gambian men should be given awards for their persistence.

Him: So can I come visit you sometime? (Extremely loaded question with many underlying meanings)
Me: (Turning around and looking at him in the face) NO! Absolutely not!
Him: Why not? Why don't you want me to come visit you in Brikama Sali?
Me: Well, first of all I don't think my husband would be very happy if you did, and anyway, my family doesn't allow me to have visitors.
Him: so you live alone? Does your husband live in your house? where in Brikama do you stay?

I was becoming furious at this point so I turned my whole body away from him, or as much as the packed gelly would allow, maybe one inch, and started responding to all of his questions with "yes" not paying attention to him anymore.
When we finally arrived in Westfield, after the longest fifteen minutes of my life, I dove out of the gelly to get away from the creepy cop and took a look around at the madness. There were maybe ten times as many people in the car-park area, not to mention the goats and rams EVERYWHERE. Everyone wants to bring home a ram for Tobaski. Even if they are being sold in their home village, they will travel and buy one somewhere else to be able to bring it home. I looked around and there were goats on top of the gellys, people walking around holding the goats back legs and wheeling them like wheel-barrows, people shoving rams into the trunks of taxis by the horns, and the smell of goat shit....the overwhelming smell of shit about knocked me off my feet.
I walked over to where the Brikama gellys normally are, and usually there are maybe at most 15-20 people waiting for a gelly to come along. Not that day, there was a crowd of maybe 100 people or more waiting/jumping into any car that was going in the direction of Brikama. I wont lie, I was terrified. Every gelly that passed the crowd was already full and every time one would stop it had maybe 3 open seats at most and people would have to push and shove their way into the car. After seven failed attempts at getting into a car, and more than an hour later, I saw one coming and thought to myself "Caroline, if you don't get into this one, you are NEVER going to get home...you will be stuck in Westfield hungover, FOREVER." This thought must have scared some courage into me. I turned bookbag around to the front, knowing I was going to fling myself into a crowd of packed people with a few pickpockets mixed in. The gelly comes rolling up slowing down, but passes where I am standing. I started running next to it, holding onto the window and banging on the door. The apparante was just hanging out the window giggling at me and at the ridiculousness of Westfield. At that moment, running alongside and kind of hanging from the car, we made eye-contact and I knew exactly what he was thinking "toubab car ornament." The car finally stopped and although I had been standing right in front of the door, I was shoved from the side by an old woman who jumped into the car with the sprite of a twenty year old girl. As I'm being pushed from all sides, I'm muttering "Oh no she didnt" under my breath, I take a look at the apparante who is still watching me and laughing, raise my eyebrows with a look that says "watch this" and manage to jump over an old blind man and a few small children, successfully stealing the last available seat in the car. We pulled off and I was finally on my way home. A few minutes later the apparante leaned over towards me and said "now you are a real Gambian."
The rest of that day was a blur. I got home an hour and a half later, told my family that my stomach was sick and laid in bed sweating the rest of the day. The next morning was Tobaski. I woke up excited and jumped out of bed and put on my new Tobaski complet (shout out to my tailor Baboucar at Uprising Unisex Salon, the dress is amazing!) put on full make up and went outside. Apparently, they don't get dressed up until night time, something I was obviously not aware of, so my mother and sisters were sitting around in either just bras or topless. Oh well, I paid good money for this outfit, ten dollars to be exact, so I decided to leave it on and wear it all day. I walked to the Tobaski prayers with my father and brother Sulleyman. It was in a huge field about ten minutes from my house. Here are some of the pictures I took. Absolutely incredible:














When we got home, it was time to slaughter the ram, and I'll warn you, these pictures are pretty graphic, but come on! Man up, and take a look!

Our ram. Look at those eyes, I think he knows whats up.

Watching the butchering of a testicle.

Mama going at something with a machete.

Cookin!

After watching and helping with the butchering process, actually eating the ram, which I had previously been excited about after not having eaten red meat in months, became seriously unappetizing. I did manage to try goat liver and lung, which as it turns out are both as disgusting as they sound. I sat around with my family the rest of the day chatting with visitors and eating ram. They finally all got dressed up in the evening. Fake hair, purple eyebrows, and more sequins than you can imagine. Brikama became a town of African princess barbie dolls before my very eyes.I love this picture of my neighbors Fatu and Oussman. They sat there posing Gambian style (unsmiling and not touching) and at the last moment they both grinned really big and Fatu threw her arm around her husbands shoulders. Love it.

My host father and Mama

My sister, Mariama on the right, and her friends.

Another day of eating nothing but ram and I was hoping to wake up and have some satoo for breakfast (rice, milk, peanuts and sugar...tastes like oatmeal, its great) but no. As I come around the corner to join my family for breakfast they hand me a piece of bread and a cup of tea and I looked over Mama to see what we would be eating and what do I find? No, not a big bowl of steaming delicious satoo, but a gigantic GOAT HEAD on a platter!! I froze, fighting the urge to run away, and started to slowly approach the head. I crouched down between Mama and Abduli and started chewing on my bread, trying to think of how to get out of this one. I have eaten many things I didn't want since coming here to please my host mother. Whole fish, plassas, unidentifiable meat, you name it, but this was my breaking point. There was no way 3 day old, cold goat brains were going anywhere near my mouth. My host mother noticed I wasn't eating any of the goat and she looked at me and said "Sali, domo!" Sali, eat! I just looked at her and said "Mmmmm" and hid behind my cup of tea. A few minutes later I can see her getting agitated (not eating their food can be taken as an insult) and she asks me why I'm not eating. A million things run through my head at this point. How can I tell her that I don't like goat head without offending her? Should I lie and tell her I'm sick? But then I'll have to act sick the rest of the day. Should I tell her I'm already full? No, I thought. I'm through trying to please this woman. I'm going to tell her the truth, even if it makes her mad. I put my tea down, looked her in the eye and said "Katu, m mang hani"....I told her I wasn't eating the goat "because, I am scared."