It's Ramadan now and my entire village
eats and drinks nothing between sunrise and sunset. The vibe is
noticeably different, by the mid afternoon everyone is exhausted and
just rests until sunset. I've been using this time to listen to the
Olympics on my short wave radio. As I said earlier, I wasn't planning
on fasting and stocked up on food to sustain me during the day.
Unfortunately what I thought was a 2 week food supply lasted about
three days, I spent most of my time in village eating nothing during
the day. Fasting actually isn't as difficult as I thought it would
be, still, I plan on hitting the market before I go back to my site
this evening.
A few weeks ago I attended a wedding in
my village. Like the baptism, I didn't see anything resembling a
ceremony, I wasn't even sure who the bride and groom were. I went to
the wedding with the chief of my village. When we arrived at the
compound I began to head over to one corner where there were
musicians playing and a lively crowd, the chief stopped me and
invited me to sit with him and a group on the opposite end of the
compound. I spent the evening practicing my Pular with old men while
they argued about local politics and chewed kola nuts. When the food
bowl came I was excited, an animal is typically slaughtered at these
events and I hadn't eaten meat in weeks. When the cover was removed
from the bowl I recoiled when I saw a sheep's head, skin and hair
intact, sitting on top of the rice. I ate rice from the bowl, trying
not to look at the head, when one of the men peeled the skin off and
began distributing bits of tongue, brain and eyeball around the bowl.
At this point I said I was full.
No comments:
Post a Comment