Tabaski

Nye Taabo a tout le monde. It turns out that this week is a big week of Burkinabé holidays. Monday was the Muslim holiday of Tabaski, Thursday is a national independence day, and Saturday is the anniversary of a reporter that was killed and all the students go on strike. Naturally, Aaron and I were about 2 steps behind everyone else learning about all of this. The whole situation was really confusing. We were told that Tabaski was coming but nobody seemed to know what day it was. We get the whole week off of school but we didn't find this out until we arrived at school ready to teach. These holidays are a big deal, too. It would be like if nobody told you about Thanksgiving in the States.

So Tabaski is called the fête of the mouton (sheep) and is one of the big Muslim holidays in the year. Everyone starts early with prayer in the morning and then around 10 they kill the mouton and start preparing a big meal. So what better way for us to celebrate and learn about it than by eating chicken with our Catholic friend? Our friend, Bernard, had us over for some chicken, soup, and dolo (imagine really bad wine). He was telling us that in Burkina, Muslims and Christians celebrate each other's holidays. So on Tabaski or the end of Rhamadan, his Muslim neighbors bring him food from their feasts and on Christmas and Easter he brings them food. (Basically, they just like a good party.)

We are thinking of getting a chicken and starting a chicken family at our house so that next year we will have our own chickens to eat for the different holidays. Bernard picked out a cock to give us so we just have to buy the hen and we're in business. We haven't seen the turtle in a while and one of our cats (the one good one) has been missing for a week (there is a chance that a neighbor ate it), so our animal population is almost back down to a reasonable level which means it's time to add some more. I think we will wait until after Christmas.

For Christmas this year we are going backpacking in Dogon Country, Mali for 5 days. It is supposed to be a must-see in West Africa so we are really excited. I'm not sure if we'll have cellphone reception so sorry in advance if we don't answer between the 23rd and 28th. Then we'll be back in Titao for New Years (Bernard has been building Titao up to be the Times Square of Burkina for New Years Eve, but I'm a little skeptical).
Okay, miss you all and hope you have a great Christmas!