Tabaski is the biggest holiday for the people here. While it is an M holiday, it has become much like Christmas in the sense that many people celebrate it more for the fun and festivities than for the spiritual reasons behind it. As we asked our friends & family about the holiday, we found that we were told various things regarding its purpose. Basically the head of the family acquires a sacrificial animal...here they mostly use rams. The ram is then sacrificed in commemoration of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son before God provided a ram in the son's place. (Just FYI...most people here say that the son was Ishmael, not Isaac.) The sacrifice is also for the atonement of the family's sins. Then the people have a big party and eat all the meat.
Holidays are always tricky here. We don't want our presence at our family's party to make it appear that we are in agreement with the purpose behind it. And we certainly don't want it to appear that we believe the dead ram we're eating is in any way atoning for our sins. We know that our sins have already been covered by the blood of Jesus...and He is alive...pretty awesome. BUT relationship is everything here. And we see these celebrations as an opportunity to share our beliefs. And it helps us to better understand what our family is searching for from God. So, we went to our family's party. The household that we visited had five (five!) rams...about $1000 of meat. Our people group is one of the more wealthy people groups here, so they really do it up right for this stuff. There was a ridiculous amount of meat being eaten and one heck of a dance party...that pretty much sums it up: meat & dancing.
As soon as we pulled out of our house, we saw rams being killed across the street. There was blood everywhere, rams laying strewn about with their heads half-detached, and rams in the process of being cut up. It's really kind of gory. When we showed up at our family's house, everybody was sitting in the courtyard cutting meat up. Women were doing some kind of loopy thing to the intestines to make them look braided...I guess they take up less room in the pot that way. We sat around talking before we ate the snack (which would qualify as a giant meal any other time). It was meat (ribs for the most part) that had some kind of delicious seasoning on it and had been grilled. Then we sat for a little while longer and drank sodas (a special treat!). Then the dancing began...all the girls and young women were in this one tiny little room with music blaring and booties shaking. So fun. Then we ate the meal....tons and tons and tons of meat that had been boiled in this stewish type sauce on top of rice. We were so full. Nafi had left earlier and they sent her home with about a 10-lb. bag of meat...it was crazy.
There will be more pictures on Facebook, but up there is one of me, our supervisor Nafi, our Aunt Bea, and Abby.
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