The Silence of the Lambs

This week has been marked by the celebration of Tabaski, the biggest Muslim holiday of the year. It is sort of similar to the North American thanksgiving celebration. Family members from all other regions come together for several days of feasting upon Turkey sheep. The main difference between Thanksgiving and Tabaski: the freshness of the meat. Now when I say freshness I literally mean the sheep was killed and cooked the same day.  Now when I say the sheep was killed, I mean every family kills the sheep themselves. Over the past couple weeks, the sheep population has multiplied twentyfold as sheep herders have brought their sheep to sell to the Saint-Louisians. They were all gathered in one large area located just down my road. Here is a picture I took at night:

People started buying them last weekend and bringing them to their houses. My host family being Christian did not celebrate Tabaski or buy any sheep. Fortunately, one of my Senegalese friends Pape invited me over to his house for the celebration.

I woke up on Wednesday morning to the call to prayer, put on my Boubou, and went outside. It was quiet, eerily quiet. No people in the street, no taxis honking at us, no children shouting “Toubab”, nothing. Dan and I walked over to Jan’s house (Jan is a volunteer who works for a different company, and is good friends with Pape as well.) Along the way, we bought some bottles of coke and ananas (sparkling pineapple flavored soft drink) along with some fruit to give to his family as gifts for having us. We waited at Jan’s house for a while for Pape to come show us how to get to his house. While we were waiting, we suddenly heard several loud hitting sounds, followed by loud yelping screams. The killings had begun.

Pape eventually showed up around 11:00 and took us to his house. It was definitely not as nice as my host familys house, but it was quaint. By the time we arrived they had already killed and skinned the sheep, and all that I could see was a large piece of skin lying on the ground with a still intact skull attached to it.

The women had already removed all the meat and were now cooking it. We all sat down on a mat and waited for the food to be ready. Around 1pm we were served a big platter and commenced to eat in the traditional Senegalese style; that is sitting on the floor (on a mat) circled around one big bowl or plate. Oh and eating with our hands, or rather our right hands. The dirty left hand is not used for eating, and is reserved only for bathroom use. The platter consisted of ribs and onion sauce, and was pretty good, but not quite the filling dish that everyone had said it was. After, we had some fruit, and Pape made some tea. Then Pape told me if I was ready for the second meal. It turns out our first dish was just an appetizer. The next platter consisted of more meaty sheep parts like legs, etc, French fries, and of course onion sauce. We stayed at Papes until about 6pm just talking, eating, and drinking tea, then thanked him and his family for having us, and walked home.

For dinner, La Taverne, one of the bars in town where we have quiz night every Wednesday, had bought us a sheep and prepared a meal for us for being such good customers. It was funny to see all the other volunteers wearing their new Boubous and dresses. The dish they served us here consisted of Sheep, cuscus, and yes, onion sauce. It was probably my favorite dish of the day. The night was finished off with a concert by one of the local Senegalese bands, which was particularly interesting tonight due to the presence of a male dancer dressed in some sort of sheep dress/outfit complete with spilling intestines. Overall, it was a very interesting day. My only regret was that I didn’t get to watch the actually killing of the sheep. One of the other volunteers managed to take a video though, so I will try and see if i can upload that sometime this week

Camel Ride

The Lampoul Desert

This weekend I went to a desert about 2 hours south of Saint Louis. I went with three other volunteers who had all arrived within the past two weeks. We organized it with a travel guide in Saint Louis who drove us to the desert and back.

We drove along the road and stopped at several places including:

 1) a 150 year old Baobab tree that looked like Rafiki’s tree in the lion King

 

 2) a small village where we were given a huge bag of peanuts

 3) a spot just on the side of the road where we sat under the shade of some trees and had a picnic.

We got to the desert around 3 in the afternoon, where we were shown to our little campsite tent/huts.

 Then we went for a walk through the desert. I had never been to a desert before, and this place was just incredible. The Lampool Desert is actually quite small and from one of the bigger sand dunes you could see the entire barrier of trees that encircled the desert. The sand was very fine, and had a really interesting orange tint to it that made it almost glow in the sun. It was an amazing feeling climbing to the top of an enormous sand dune and being able to see this beautiful sand stretching out for miles upon miles.

 Later in the afternoon, we went on a camel ride which was just such a cool experience. Check out the video and pictures below:

For dinner, we had a nice three course meal at the campsite. It was a really surreal experience because we were eating at tables with cutlery and tablecloths etc, but we were in the middle of an actual desert. Overall It was just a really nice, relaxed experience. I’ve put up a lot more pictures on fb if you wanna see more of the trip.

Distributing Beignets

Today I went with a group of other volunteers to help distribute the beignets. We walked to a Talibe centre sponsored by projects abroad called espoir (hope). There we met up with a few Senegalese guys who worked for the centre who would take us around to the Daaras where we would distribute the beignets to the Talibe. Before we left however, the guy who ran the centre gave a good 10 minute speech in Frolof (French-Wolof) about brotherhood, honest work, and other things that seemed far too emotional for a Monday morning. As we began to leave I asked Sara what the speech was about. She told me that last week one of the guys who worked at the centre turned another one in for smoking weed. Getting caught smoking weed here carries a heavy penalty of two months in a Senegalese prison, so this was a pretty big accusation. The guy accused had been arrested last Thursday, and had spent a day in prison where he was given no food, until he was cleared of the charges. I don’t think that either of those guys were there today, but it was just some big controversy. Anyway I digress.

We walked along the road and went to 5 or 6 different Daaras distributing the beignets to every Talibe there. There were a couple half decent places that didn’t look like they would be that miserable to live in, and then there were those that were, well, miserable. One in particular made a pretty  deep impression on me. It was situated about 15 minutes away from the centre, and the road to get there was filled with makeshift sewage systems and stagnant odors. I was told by one of the Senegalese guys taking us there that this Daara was nicknamed “le Daara de mouches” or the Daara of flys. I soon found out why. The place was extremely dirty, and flies occupied 20% of my visual field. I peeked into one of the rooms where the children were memorizing pages of the Koran, and saw… hardly anything. The room was poorly lit, and at first all I saw was twenty sets of white eyes staring up at me. The pleasant smell of the beignets must have alerted them to my presence;  a fresh shift from the foul odor of feces that seeped out from the nearby bathrooms. I threw the sachets of beignets out to the children, and they all wolfed them down ferociously. Not too many “mercies” though. I guess that they don’t teach manners here, only useful things like the Koran. I am sure they will all have very successful lives.

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How to make Beignets (donuts) in 15 easy steps

Step 1 acquire ingredients and instructions from someone more culinarily inclined (Sara).

Step 2 Call over someone more capable of properly mixing ingredients and properly making dough (Mia).

Step 3 Put In a large (LARGE) bowl and ask host mum if she can make room in the fridge for it. Use force if necessary. The fridge can take it.

Step 4 Leave in the refridgerator overnight. Pass the time by staying out all night partying pretending to celebrate Halloween, but really just using it as an excuse to party in one’s Boubou (traditional Senegalese outfit)

Step 5 Wake up and check on dough. Ask host mum if you can borrow the bowl (hope that she has forgiven/forgotten about that knife you borrowed and lost last week.

Step 6 Go to a rooftop, along the beach preferably, and meet up with all the other aspiring bakers.

Step 7 Start rolling the dough into small balls and placing them on a tray. If the dough is too sticky because you couldn’t follow some simple instructions and added too much water to the mixture, then add some flour.

Step 8 Lick excess dough off of fingers and sides of bowl. Ignore that voice in the back of your head telling you not to eat uncooked dough made with Senegalese eggs.

Step 9 With the assistance of some more experienced cooks (Sara’s host mom and sisters), start boiling oil in pots.

Step 10 Use a large draining spoon to take the beignets out of the pot and into a bowl.

Step 11 Sample one to make sure they taste good.

Step 12 Sample another. Just to be sure.

Step 13 Start putting beignets into small plastic bags.

Step 14 Put little plastic bags into big plastic bags that are to be given to the Talibe centres. Pocket some for yourself, all that cooking was hard work.

Step 15 Job well done. Clean hands (weapon of choice – tongue or sink as you prefer) and go home.

An objective description of Daaras

For those who don’t already know, a Daara is a school where children in Senegal go to learn the Koran. The children who study the Koran in these Daaras are called Talibe or disciples. The majority of them are boys, and their ages generally range from 5-25 years old. They come from all over Senegal, and even neighbouring countries such as Mauritania and the Gambia. The majority of them come from very poor families who cannot afford to raise them. The families will often send them to some of the bigger towns in Senegal like St. Louis to learn the Koran, or sometimes just to experience hardship . Each Daara is run by a Maribu who is in charge of teaching the Talibe the Koran, and providing them with food. However, because nobody pays the Maribu to run the Daara, he often sends the children out to beg for money so he can feed them. Some of the Maribus are very corrupt and merely use the Talibe to beg for money which he just takes for himself. The Talibe generally spend 10 years memorizing the Koran, usually at a pace of one page per day, and 10 years learning what they’ve memorized. Because they must memorize the Koran in Arabic, and none of them know Arabic, it takes a very long time to learn and understand it all. Most families will give their leftover food to the Talibe, but they are still a very big problem.

Update

Sorry I havnt been putting up many posts recently ive been really busy the past couple of weeks. But here are the top ten most interesting things that have happened this week.

1.       Last Saturday was Georgina’s last weekend so we started off at the French Cultural Centre in town where a jazz band was playing. One of the volunteers actually wnet up on stage with the band and sang a couple songs with them which was really cool. We proceeded to go out to several bars before going to a night club in town. Returned to chez moi at around 6 in the morning.

2.       I have a roommate now. His name is Dan and he’s from London. He’s cool.

3.       I bought a Bou-bou. A traditional Senegalese outfit. It resembles a set of nice pyjamas.

4.       I started lessons with a French professor. 2 hours every afternoon. Really think my French is improving (at least the listening part)

5.       It rained again on Sunday. My room got slightly flooded, but because there is a slight slant, most of the water went onto Dan’s side of the room. We filled three buckets of water up while draining the room. I was literally scooping water up with a dustpan.

I’ll try and upload a bunch of pictures sometime this week.