Tabaski-Thanksgiving-Birthday- Christmas Oh My!
Tabaski is a Muslim holiday celebrated 40 days after the end of Ramadan. The celebration is something that is looked forward to for weeks! Everyone buys expensive fabric and gets extravagant embroidering and tailoring done spending 1000s of CF. Tabaski is comparable to Christmas in the excitement and celebration- actually it was like Christmas for my belly! Everyone has spent weeks fattening up their sheep and goats in preparation for the Tabaski feast. Everywhere I went I saw sheep and goats, tied to the roofs of bush taxis, shoved under seats in bush taxis, in the trunk of taxis in Bamako, I even saw a moto with a sheep sandwiched between the driver and rider. In preparation for the holiday all the women in the village paint their feet black with henna- I of course participated by allowing my friend to slather first a green colored paste on the bottoms, sides of my feet and the tips of my toes, letting in on over night. The next morning after scraping off the gunk, which left my feet a reddish orange color, yet another paste was slathered on to my feet. This one was made with ashes and this turned my feet black. Everyone was excited to see that I participated in this tradition..it stayed on for weeks after!
On the morning of Tabaski around 9:00am everyone gathers for prayer, since it is a special holiday they hold prayer on the soccer field instead of inside the mosque due to the fact that practically everyone in the village attends morning prayer. Everyone has to pass by my hut to get to the soccer field, so I was very well informed that it was time to pray! As I make my way to the soccer field I’m passed by veiled women, capped men, and freshly bathed children all wearing brand new, stiff clothing. After and hour of up and down and prayer the next hours was spent with me being blessed by practically every person as they made their way back home to start cooking their feast. Of course I was blessed with the usual blessings of May God bless this day, May God make today better than yesterday and the Tabaski blessings of May you be blessed with, wealth, good health and May God let us spend this day together for years to com.
Afterward I made my rounds greeting everyone I saw, complementing their new clothes, and of course showing off my new Malian Garb as well. I made sure to stop buy the Dugutiki’s house and my Djatigi’s (host father) house accepting handfuls of raw goat as my Tabaski present. As I made my way back to my neighbor’s house, who was cooking for me. I stopped in and gave her my gifts of meat to add to our feast. While she cooked I joined the men of the house in round after round of tea.
After tea, it was finally time to eat! I joined them for round after round of food! Good food! Meat! The first course was meat with oily sauce and bread, the second course was meat and noodles, and the third course was meat and Malian yams. I never really know what part of the goat, or sheep I’m eating I just tell myself, yum protein! After I insisted I was full they poured me a drink, being thirsty I took a big gulp and it tasted horrible! I had to force myself to swallow it! As soon as I did I said WHAT IS THAT? And everyone cracked up laughing, telling me the name of whatever it was I drank, I have yet to really find out what it was! Following my feast I yalayalaed around the village until I found a nice shady spot and played cards with my friends, as we bask in our rare feeling of fullness-fullness of non-toe!
For my favorite American Holiday of Thanksgiving we traveled down south to Sikassoville,- the regional Capital of Sikasso which is very lush and has all of typical food one could ask for at a Thanksgiving Meal! Volunteers who live in Sikasso helped pull together a wonderfully delicious meal of Turkey, stuffing, salad, green beans, fruit salad, and of course apple and pumpkin pie- all of which were simply AMAZING! I’m not going to say it was better than Grandma’s Thanksgiving Dinner, however it was quite comparable!! The next day we rented out a swimming pool at a fancy hotel and the fellas cooked the ladies a Mexican feast complete with Guacamole! The following day we all gather our things together and piled into two cars that drove us out of Sikassoville to a village about an hour away called Woroni. Woroni is the home of amazing waterfalls! We spend the day climbing, hiking, and enjoying the scenery and good company. We spent the night by the campfire because it was actually COLD! Sunday I woke up early to enjoy some quiet time with in front of the beautiful waterfall just enjoying God’s breathtaking creation being thankful that even though I wasn’t with my real family on this holiday, I was glad to have my Peace Corps family to share it with!
I left the waterfalls feeling relaxed, calmed and having a since a peacefulness that I haven’t really ever experienced before, however because I live in Mali, that feeling didn’t last too long! We ended up with having more people staying over night than originally planned witch was fine at the waterfalls, we had enough food and no one minded sharing tents for sleeping, however when we hiked back out to meet our drivers to take us back in to Sikassoville we realized this was a problem…about 20 people now have to fit into two cars! With a little arguing and persuading we managed to stuff the calls full with people, throw our luggage on the roof, along with four brave souls willing to ride on top of each car. The trip was very interesting to say the least, the whole trip turned into quite the adventure! Our car kept breaking down, Oh! Have mentioned the beginning condition of the car is probably something one would fine in the line up for the derby at the fair! The first time the car broke down the driver got out, grabbed a wrench banged around under the hood for a bit got back in and started it right up, however the second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth times the car broke down the wrench wasn’t much help and much more time was spent with the driver looking confused under the hood. When we finally reached the guard station before entering the city the roof riders had to join the rest of us inside the car in order to pass. We finally finally made it back to Sikassoville in one piece!
After returning back to village from the nice holiday break it was time to celebrate my birthday! In Mali birthdays are really not celebrated at all, actually most people don’t even know how old they are! However informed my friends a week prior that my birthday was coming up and we were going to celebrate it! I spent the morning walking around greeting every one and telling them about my visit to Sikasso. In the afternoon I painted mine, and a few my friend finger nails and toe nails before whipping up a few batched of no bake cookies. After my friend cooked me my requested birthday dinner of “Malian Macaroni” we ate cookies, drank hibiscus tea, and sang and danced to Ameriki music including the Black Eyed Peas and Muso Gaga (Lady Gaga).
And the most recently celebrated holiday was of course Christmas which turned out to be a three day long celebration- kind of. Starting Thursday I traveled to my friends village to stay the night there so we could travel into Bamako together the next day. On Thursday we walked around her village enjoying the scenery and the more modern luxuries her village has that mine does not. Thursday night, sitting in her room reading and chatting in our pajamas we are interrupted by her host sister coming in and asking us what we were doing, and why we were going to bed. She went on to explain that drummers were coming and we were going to have a party, laughing we didn’t believe her. She left and we continued with our relaxing evening then around 9:30 we hear drums! When we walk out the door we see every neighbor has crowed into the concession, drummers, singers, and dancers all setting up speakers and microphones preparing for a party! When asked what the special occasion was the answer we were given was “Grandpa wanted to see the dancers tonight.” Well Grandpa requested Dancers, and Dancers he got!! It was amazing! Everyone really enjoyed themselves and partied and danced under the full moon until midnight!
The next day our Christmas celebration continued as we traveled to Bamako, ate some chicken sandwiches and made our way to the one and only Spa! I enjoyed a wonderful body massage. Starting with my feet she rubbed away all of miles and miles of walking I’ve done in the past six months. Working her way up she massaged away all of the bike rides to Bougouni and back. She rubbed my hands and relaxed the muscles used to greet every one I see. Continuing up my arms she rubbed out every bucket of water I’ve filled or pumped. Making her way to my back and shoulders she relieved all the stress of leaving my family, learning a new language, and witnessing such poverty that I have been carrying with me since July. She even massaged my face and neck, calming all of my laughing muscles that have been working overtime lately. With every breath I could feel stress, worries, regrets, and reservations leaving and my body filling once again with that indescribable peacefulness I felt with I first left the waterfalls.
After enjoying that fantastic experience, my friend and I bought scrumptious ice cream bars and walked toward the Peace Corps House to continue our Christmas celebration with the other volunteers who were staying there too! All together there were seven of us celebrating, with movies, music, and making a home cooked meal. Christmas day was spent buying yummy food at market bringing it home and preparations began! In between phone calls from family, we cleaned, chopped, cut, peeled, mixed and prepared food all afternoon. Finally around 7:00 the seven of us sate down and enjoyed a wonderfully cooked meal of Corn chowder, wheat berry salad, stuffing, green beans, garlic roasted potatoes and dessert of chocolate pudding cake, and apple and cranberry crisp. If I had to spend Christmas away from home again I wouldn’t want it be any different, or with any other people because it was extraordinary!
