Tabaski

Tabaski, or Eid al-Adha, is a big Muslim holiday celebrating Abraham's sacrifice, not of his son but of a sheep, and we just happened to be in Dakar at the time of this festival. We have been seeing massive amounts of sheep around the place, for sale with a lot of bleating going on. We saw young boys taking the sheep to the beach to wash them so they would look nice and clean for the sale. We also saw people traveling on buses and in cars with sheep on the roof.

Actually, if you saw how full the car was inside maybe the
sheep had the better spot.

Apparently a real nice sheep can be quite expensive. If a man has several wives he would have to buy a sheep for each one of his households and sometimes it would create a lot of aggression if one happened to get a bigger or better one than another. Someone also said that they even have a sheep beauty contest but I take that with a grain of salt. There is also the expense of buying new clothes for the event, so the tailors are kept very busy. It really is a very big occasion.

Sadly, now it has all gone quiet here in the neighbourhood,  all we can hear from up on the roof terrace  is heavy punching. I think they are cutting and dividing up their sheep next door. The blood has to run off into the ground, into a big hole, so this is done outside the apartment in the sand roads. They estimate that 3 to 4 million sheep are slaughtered in connection with Tabaski.

Most houses including apartment buildings have roof
terraces which is such a good idea in this sort of
climate.You can hang out laundry to dry and have
barbecues or just sitting enjoying the evening. As
you can see we even had a jacuzzi on ours but
we never used it. So much to do, so little time.

From what we were told, the men go to the mosque in the morning and then when they get back the slaughter begins. Son and hubby went out during this quieter period and were welcomed by several families to help with the preparation and told much more about the festival and the traditions.

The neighbours across the street from the house where we were staying were very friendly and invited hubby and our son in to taste the very first parts that they barbecued. It was the kidneys and liver etc. The thing is that you are encouraged in Tabaski to show hospitality towards the poor and needy and strangers, and it must have been in one of those categories that hubby and son fitted in.

Hubby with the far more elegant neighbours. 
Several family members had traveled long
distances to partake of this festival.

Wedding Senegalese style

It's getting towards the end of our stay here in Senegal, just as we are getting the knack of the haggling and chatting etc. Oh, well, I guess we just have to come back. Another very good reason to come back is that our elder daughter has married a Senegalese man and they will be living here in Dakar.
The wedding was in fact a three-day affair, first the civil ceremony at the Town Hall (and of course special dresses for that)

The man in the middle is the Mayor of Dakar and he held a stern but
well-meaning talk much longer than one is used to at a civil ceremony.

Then the religious ceremony the next day, with a long white dress for the bride etc, followed by a delicious buffet dinner and special cake made by the bride's girlfriend (she is a cake maker by profession) and lots of dancing at a hotel.

Luckily other people took pictures of the
event and I am hoping to be able to swap
out this blurred one eventually.

The wedding cake symbolizing the couple's
love of travel.

We had actually stayed there for a few night when we first arrived so we knew it was very nice. The reason we moved out was that our younger daughter and her boyfriend arrived from Australia and so did our son and two of the bride's girlfriends from London. We rented a house where we were able all to fit in. And where toilets had to be flushed with buckets of water and the A/C only worked in some bedrooms but not in the two communal living rooms. It was very hot and sticky! This is the worst season for humidity so next time we will aim for January and onwards.

The house has the obligatory roof terrace where hubby is right now checking out the sheep slaughter. Today is the Tabaski, a big Muslim holiday celebrating Abraham's sacrifice, not of his son but of a sheep. I will have to write that in a separate blog entry and just try to keep to the subject of the wedding here.

This brings us to the third day of the wedding, a Yendu which was held at the groom's surrogate mother's house.

The closest family and friends were supposed to wear clothes in the same
material, so here we are, sweat patches and all.

The street was closed off and chairs set up under a party tent where a group of dancers from the area that they come from danced accompanied by spoons and sticks hitting plastic buckets and blowing whistles. It was great, what a sound and what energy!

But before that we all ate together out of big plates of rice and meat and spicy sauce. We foreigners got spoons but normally you eat with your right hand, your left being used for "you know what".

There is so much more to tell, about our traveling in Senegal but I am keeping to the subject of the wedding here.