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| Meat marche |
In the span of two days I managed to
consume more meat than I have in the past three years combined. On Tuesday and Wednesday it was the fete of
Tabaski and during these two days everything I had become accustomed to changed. The children were all running around in new
clothes with their new hair-dos, there was an abundance of rice and meat
instead of just the normal to and leaf sauce, a marche appeared in my village
and not the neighboring one, and for one night the nightlife was hopping. These two days were unlike any other day in
my village and I am so glad to have celebrated the fete with those whom I have
grown close. Living in an entirely Muslim
village (there are 7 mosques for the 1,000 people who live here) I will not
have the opportunity to celebrate the holidays I am used to, such as Christmas
and Easter, but I am so grateful to be able to experience the new ones.
The first day of the fete consisted
of the village gathering in a clearing to pray and then making our way to
another clearing for the meat marche. In
the past month I have been putting off praying with the rest of my
village. The majority of the people here
pray multiple times a day but Friday afternoon is when everyone gets together
at the mosque to pray as a group. It’s
not that I was opposed to praying with them but I had no idea how to go about
it. I knew your head had to be covered
and that was about it. But for the fete
I sucked up my pride and was prepared to laugh along with everyone as I figured
out what to do. So, Tuesday morning I
walked over to the other neighborhood with the old women and children who live
near me. Luckily the women I went with
took me under their wing and showed me what to do. I was surprised by how relaxed the whole
thing was. The motions consisted of
raising your hands in front of you and then wiping them down your face. I wasn’t required to mutter any words and I
feel like I got the hang of it. People
were still amused by my actions but they are amused by anything that I do. The prayer only lasted about ten minutes and
then it was marche time. The fact that
the marche was being held in my village is a pretty big deal. My village is very small and we do not have
any stores of our own or our own marche.
In order to buy anything we have to go to the neighboring village which
is about 3kms away. I know that’s not
too far, but when the sun is brutally shining down it is further than I would
like to go. The Tabaski marche was full
of meat. There was a long aisle of men
selling their animals to those who don’t have any of their own to kill or want
to give a cadeaux to someone. I was
lucky enough to have two bundles of meat cadueax-ed to me. Luckily, my homologue cooked it all for
me. Scattered amongst the men with meat
were a few women selling gateaux, fried dough balls, and friend yams, which are
very similar to French fries and something I really enjoy. After hanging around and talking with people
for a little while I rejoined my older women and children to walk back to my
neighborhood. The rest of the day
everyone spent around their own homes preparing meat and rice. This was such a treat. Normally people eat to, which is flour and
water cooked into a mushy substance, with a sauce that has the consistency similar
to slime. I’m not the biggest fan of
this meal but I eat it pretty often because I don’t want to have to cook for
myself. Anyway, meat and rice is a rare treat and as I walked around visiting
people everyone insisted on serving me a bit of meat. Before coming to Burkina I was a vegetarian
so having to eat all the meat was a bit tuff at times, especially when it was
goat intestines. I tried to pretend it
was like eating macaroni, but it really wasn’t the same.
The next morning my friend Celestina
came over to experience the second day of the fete. Celestina’s village is about 15kms away so
it’s not too terrible a bike ride.
Luckily, by the time she got to my village at 9 I had already been given
more rice and sauce than I could consume by myself in a week. Shortly after she got to my house the “youth”
of my village came to greet me and say hello.
When I use the term youth I am referring to a group of young men in their
early twenties. The youth were
accompanied by the presidents of the preschool and primary school. After shaking hands with the 25 men who had
gathered outside my courtyard I was cadeaux-ed a rooster. A chicken or rooster is a traditional gift to
give to someone upon their arrival, so for anyone thinking about visiting a
chicken or rooster might be coming your way.
After a few kind words were said the youth were on their way and
Celestina and I left with my homologue to make the necessary greetings to the
village. Part of the Tabaski fete
includes walking around visiting and greeting everyone in the village and at
each stop along the way you are given food.
After stopping at the third house I didn’t think I could anymore without
exploding but then at the next house we were given spaghetti! At village this
is more of a delicacy than rice, obviously I could not turn it down. By the time we returned to my house five
hours later I was exhausted and five pounds heavier.
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| Tons of rice and sauce |
Celestina both laid down on my
plastic mat to take a quick siesta before the party that night. In the past month the farthest I have
wandered after dark is 200 meters to eat with my homologue and her family. It was kind of exciting to be out and doing
something after dark. At 6:30 Celestina
and I were accompanied by my homologue and a few children over to the night marche,
which is really just a big party. When I
get there I couldn’t believe I was in my village. Rice bags had been sewn together and strewn
up as make-shift walls to create a small movie theatre in one spot and in
another a dance club. For a village that
doesn’t have electricity they pulled out all the stops for this party. In a long line were women selling gateauxs
and juice, and men selling coffee to help people get through the night. People come from the entire area to attend
this party and it really was off the hook.
Everyone looked so sharp in their new clothes and the kids were having a
field day. After visiting the women
selling food Celestina and I found some of my friends and went to go break it
down on the dance floor. At around 11 we
made our way back to my house with a big group of women and children. The party continued on without us and I heard
people coming home around 4 and 5 in the morning.
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| The crew dressed up for the party |
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| Adama! |
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| Party Shenanigans |
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| Making gateauxs |
The next day the village was quiet, very similar to a Saturday or Sunday morning on a college campus. Normally people are up and going about their morning chores at 5 and 6, but everyone was too tired to go on with their normal routine. For the whole day everything slowed down and people caught up on sleep from the night before.
Now that I have filled you in on two
days at my village I’ll give you a run down on what I do with the rest of my
time here. I was assigned to train the
pre-school teachers and teach at the pre-school. The universal start date for school in
Burkina is October 1st. I do
not know anyone who started school on October 1st. On the 1st teachers showed up at
school and a few students were there to help clean the school grounds. The rest of the students were at their family
farms helping with the harvest. A lot of
my time is spent meandering around the farms and helping Rasmata with her
harvest. Now, the date is the 18th
and I have yet to commence pre-school.
I’m hoping things will get started this upcoming week. Schools have finally started but because the
pre-school is community run it is a little it different. At the primary schools and the lycees the
teachers are paid by the government, so they have more incentive to start. The teachers at my pre-school are three women
from the village who have taken teaching on top of their everyday chores of
farming, cooking, and cleaning. They
have all been preoccupied with making sure their farms get harvested before the
crops spoil, so I haven’t yet pushed to get things started at the pre-school. If things don’t get going in the next week I
may start to drop hints that we should maybe get going.
Other than farming I spend a lot of
my time hanging out with kids. Spending
time with the kids has been really helpful in learning Moore. My one friend Ham is a three year old boy who
I walk around with and say “yaa boe?” What’s that and he gives me the Moore
word. Now I have quite a bit of Moore vocabulary but my ability to form
sentences is still lacking. Once the
pre-school starts I am hoping to pick it up really quick, otherwise I will
never be able to teach a lesson on my own. If language fails me at least I have
become pretty good at charades and drawing images of what I am trying to convey.
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| HAM! |
