Hello there, and sorry for the long delay in this post! I’ve had some technical difficulties and I’ve been surprisingly busy, which has been a welcome change from the normally slow pace of life here. I’ll try to post more about my current projects soon, but this post is about a Senegalese holiday that I celebrated with my family back in September.

In Islam, there are two big annual holidays: Eid Al-Fitr and Eid Al-Adha. The first is a celebration at the end of Ramadan, a month of fasting and spiritual cleansing. I fasted with my family for 21 days back in May, and the day we got to start eating during the day again was certainly a happy one. But it was nothing compared to the the second, larger holiday. In Senegal, it is called Tabaski. It celebrates Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son to God. (For those of you unfamiliar with the story, here’s a quick recap.) While Tabaski is only marked as one day on my google calendar, the preparation and celebration spanned almost a month. Here’s a rundown of how we prepared:

CLOTHES

Everyone wants to look good for the holidays, and Tabaski is no exception. Weeks before hand, my family started buying new clothes. They came back from the weekly market with colorful, matching outfits, freshly pressed and kept in plastic bags so they wouldn’t get dusty before the big day. But for Tabaski, one new outfit isn’t enough. The celebration can last for over a week, so my family also took fabric to a local tailor to make additional custom-designed outfits. Going to tailors to get custom clothing isn’t as unusual here as it is in America, so tailors have pretty good business year-round. But during the month leading up to Tabaski, the work is non-stop. About a week before the celebration, I was up around 4AM to catch an early car, and I saw a tailor who had been working through the night. When I asked her if she had gone to bed or rested at all, she said she would rest after Tabaski. All that hard work pays off though, in stunning, colorful, perfectly-fitted outfits.

HENNA AND HAIR

On the day(s) when we actually celebrate, people will put on their new clothes and beautiful, elaborate makeup. But some of the dressing up requires more than a morning of prep. In the days leading up to Tabaski, we started getting henna and braiding hair.

The henna takes nearly 24 hours to complete. My sister and I spent an afternoon cutting pieces of tape into thin strips, which she then layered onto the soles of my feet in a pattern. When my feet and toes were taped to her satisfaction, she spread a henna paste over the tape, wrapped my feet in plastic bags, put socks on over the bags, and told me to be careful when I walked. Then she started the same process on my hand. By the time my hand was bagged it had been nearly four hours, but I wasn’t complaining. More intricate designs can take much longer. I slept in my socks and woke up with the call to prayer around 5AM the next morning. I held the flashlight so my sister could see where to scrape the henna paste off my feet and hands, being careful to leave the tape in tact. The parts of my skin that weren’t taped are now sepia, like the Indian henna I was most familiar with in the states.  But in Senegal, there’s another step. Taking care to keep the tape in place, my feet and hands were rubbed with a chemical that reacts with the henna to turn it even darker, and about 5 hours later the designs were completely black. When time is up, the bags are removed so the chemical can air dry. And finally, a full day later, my henna was complete!

The braids take less time, only about 7 hours total. My family really wanted to give me extensions, but after a multiple day discussion, they settled for braiding the hair already attached to my head. I’ve only gotten my hair trimmed once since I left the states, so there’s plenty to braid. My sister spent about two hours a day for three days braiding tiny strands of my hair, for a total of 70 braids on my entire head. (Taking them out a week later only took about an hour.)

SHOPPING

In addition to buying clothes, henna, and hair extensions, people prepare for Tabaski by buying food and gifts. Because it’s the largest holiday of the year, families will usually save money specifically for Tabaski. The markets are flooded with people looking for fruit, vegetables, bags of rice, noodles, sheep, goats, and sugar. While I tried to avoid the markets, my family members went daily and came home with new bowls, cups, pitchers, tons of food, and candy for the children.

THE MAIN EVENT

I was extremely lucky because I got to celebrate Tabaski with another volunteer – specifically, the volunteer who lived in my village before me. (She’s the blonde girl in my pictures.) Not only was she helpful with names I had forgotten and translating local language, but she was also a great reminder of what the next two years might look like for me. It was wonderful to see how much our village loved and missed her, because it reminded me how many relationships can be built while living in a new place. No one told me “she did a lot of health talks,” but people were overflowing with stories of lunch dates and afternoons spent drinking tea. It was like traveling with a celebrity, and I loved it.

The morning started out like normal, with the women cleaning the compound and starting to cook early. The only thing that differentiated the first morning of Tabaski was watching my father slaughtered a sheep. Because goats and sheep are expensive, they’re saved for special occasions, and Tabaski is at the top of the list. After the meat was cut, my father and the rest of the men in the community put on their new clothes and went to the mosque. My sisters prepared multiple courses of meat with onion sauce, meat with macaroni, and meat with rice. When the men got home from the mosque, lunch was served.

After lunch, the older women put on their new clothes and serve koolaid-type drinks while the younger women do dishes. When everything is clean and everyone has had koolaid and tea, the younger women get to dress up. They pile on makeup, tie gravity-defying head scarves, and march through the sand in heels that I would be afraid to even stand still in. Because their chores aren’t done until after lunch, they spend time with their friends until late into the night. I tried to keep up, but I was always asleep before they returned home. The next morning, they would rise early and start the whole process over again. I wish I had photographed more people, but even photos can’t capture the joy and color that Tabaski brought to my village.

When I asked people how long Tabaski was going to last, estimations ranged for 4 days to 2 weeks. In more urban areas, celebrations may only last a day or two, but our community wasn’t going to settle for that. The most common answer was simple: “It doesn’t end.” As far as I could tell, the celebration lasted about a week, but I think my family would have been happy to keep eating meat and relaxing with friends for the rest of the month. For now, we’ll be counting down until next year.