Tabaski

 My host family is Muslim, so in the beginning of November we celebrated Tabaski.  When my brother first told me about it, he was unsure of the date.  At first he said it would fall on a Sunday, then a Monday, and then it moved back to a Sunday.  Apparently, the date of this Fête (celebration) is based on the moon.  It wasn’t until about 2 days before that I was sure it would y on Sunday.  Tabaski, if you are like me and have no clue what that is, it is a holiday to celebrate the time that Abraham was stopped when attempting to sacrifice his son by an angel of God and given a mouton (lamb) instead.  Hence, the Fête de Mouton, meaning we slaughter a lamb and feast and share with all of our friends and neighbors.  I am one of the few stagières (trainees) to be hosted by a Muslim family so my dad said everyone was invited to fête with us.  Since my family only raises goats, chickens, cattle, and donkeys, I was really concerned about when we would be getting this mouton.   The night before, my dad finally showed up with a ram. 

I am pretty sure the women were up before 5 preparing the bissap (Burkinabé punch) and popcorn with crevettes and gâteau to hand out a party favors.  When I finally immerged, 6ish, I sat by the popcorn and gâteau, pretending to help.  While the men went off to pray at the Mosque, my sister broke out a children’s Bible and began sharing all of the Old Testament as well as the New.  I love that our religions connect us here; it does not divide us.  When the men returned, my father discarded his prayer complet (outfit), rounded up my brothers and other men to hold down the ram while he…well you understand.  He also rounded up two chickens and held them out to me.  In his broken Français/Mooré he told me that these chickens were for me and my friends.  Within seconds their throats were slit and my brothers already depluming them. 

The rest of the day I spent playing with children and babies, practicing Mooré, drinking bissap, shaking about a million hands and going through the eight step Mooré greeting process which I still don’t really understand, and finally napping under a calabash tree with my friends after feasting on fried chicken, in their entirety (beak to talon), with riz sauce arachide (my favorite Burkinabé dish, rice with vegetable peanut sauce).  This fête continued until the wee hours of the morning, after I had gone to bed.