Happy Eid al-Adha

Since I'm stuck in the med hut for yet another day, here's an educational blog post about the upcoming Muslim holiday, along with a few other tidbits.

Eid al-Adha (we all call it Tabaski here) is the festival of the sacrifice, to commemorate Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son Ishmael. Before this could happen, Allah provided a ram to sacrifice instead. In recognition, many families or communities here kill a ram and divide it into three portions: one for the family, one for friends and neighbors, and one for the needy. This year, it'll happen on November 7th, which is the 10th day of the 12th Islamic month. The lunar calendar is used here, which is shorter than the Christian/Gregorian calendar by about 11 days, so holiday dates change every year. The annual pilgrimage to Mecca (Hajj) is occurring now too- from the 7th until the 12th of the 12th month, Dhu al-Hijjah. 

Korite, the last holiday I was here for, included no more protein than a few hunks of monitor lizard jerky, so I'm getting pretty excited about the possibility of actual meat. That is, until the third or fourth day of eating it without any refrigeration. Other than the eating, Tabaski will include lots of hair braiding, dressing up, praying, and guests from far and wide. There's been a lot of hype about Tabaski around the village, it seems to be the holiday that people take most seriously, the most guests visit for, and most often used as a reference point in the calendar. Instead of giving a month or date for events, people will say how long before or after Tabaski they occur. There have also been huge lots of the most incredible looking rams (think small horses) for sale in cities for the past month or so. While it's pretty normal the whole year 'round to have a sheep, goat, or otherwise strapped to the top of your car while traveling around the country, it's particularly common now. Just remember to roll up the window if you're sitting under the business end of the sheep...

In other news:
In conjunction with the 50th anniversary Peace Corps celebration in DC, Senegalese musician Youssou N'Dour gave a concert, and was introduced by our country director, Chris Hedrick. There's a video here: http://www.kennedy-center.org/explorer/videos/?id=M4784.

PC Senegal has launched a new website, it's real fancy and has lots of great content: http://pcsenegal.com/.