Tabaski 2010

On November 17th, Muslims around the world celebrated a holiday called Eid al-Adha, or Tabaski in West Africa. It’s also known as Seliba, which means big prayer in Bambara. Here’s a short summary from Wikipedia:

Eid al-Adha is an important religious holiday celebrated by Muslims worldwide to commemorate the willingness of Abraham (Ibrahim) to sacrifice his son Ishmael (Isma'il) as an act of obedience to God, before God intervened to provide him with a ram to sacrifice instead. The meat is divided into three parts to be distributed to others. The family retains one third of the share, another third is given to relatives, friends and neighbors, and the other third is given to the poor & needy.

This is the time when Muslims make the pilgrimage to Mecca, which they are supposed to do at least once in their lives if they can afford the trip. Here in Mali, Tabaski is the biggest holiday of the year. Families save up for the big feast and buy a sheep to sacrifice if they can afford it. About a week before the holiday, women started to braid each other’s hair, kids were fitted for nice new clothes, and animal herders came into town to sell their sheep. Families save up a lot of money for Tabaski to buy a sheep to sacrifice for the holiday feast.

This year my host family was fortunate enough to buy two sheep for the feast. Each day, my host brother would bring the sheep over and tie them up in my yard during the day. It was nice to have some sheep around for a week, since they ate all the overgrown grass and weeds that took over my yard during the rainy season. I didn’t get warmed up to the sheep since their days were numbered, but I did give them names: Taba and Ski. My host brother thought that was hilarious.

On the morning of Tabaski, all of the men in town went to a central location and all prayed together as the imam led the service. Once the imam had sacrificed his sheep, everyone could go home and do the same. Our sacrifice was especially graphic this year with two sheep to kill. As with tradition, my host dad delivered some of the sheep to an old woman in town, and also gave some to our neighbors.

The feast was plentiful; we ate two big courses during the day and another at night. As with every Malian meal, we all ate together, with our hands, in a shared bowl. We had salad, liver, fries, and bread for the first course, and Moroccan cous cous with onions for the second course. At night we had more meat and potatoes in an oily sauce. I haven’t been that stuffed in a long time!