Tobaski

So, there’s a Muslim holiday called Tobaski. I don’t know exactly what event it celebrates, but it happens about two months after the end of Ramadan, and it happened last week.

Let me paint you a picture of what this holiday is like. It’s like a mixture of 1)prom, 2)the strip at Miami Beach, and 3)a bloodbath. Let’s go into more detail, shall we?

1. Tobaski is like prom.
Tobaski is like prom for many reasons. People spend an INCREDIBLE amount of money on looking superfly for Tobaski. Like A LOT. My host sister dropped about 1800 dalasis on one of her outfits for Tobaski, and she got THREE. To give you a picture, I make a lot of money for someone living in the Gambia, and I make about 5500 dalasis a month. Teacher trainees at my school get 475 dalasis per month. So… woah.

Following everybody getting all dolled up, they walk around on the dirt roads, and walk to a photo studio… I know what you, being Americans, are picturing. This is not what you’re picturing. It’s a single hut, humming with noise from a generator which supplies energy for like two lightbulbs. Lining the walls are ridiculous posters from America… RIDICULOUS. There are numerous Obama posters, duplicate Jennifer Lopez posters, and lots of soccer pictures. In front of these, sits a small Christmas tree, decorated with huge orange shiny balls. And this acts as the backdrop for hundreds of Gambians in inappropriately shiny clothing, posing and clashing with all of the Americana on the walls.

2. Tobaski is like the strip at Miami Beach.
Tobaski is like the strip at Miami Beach for many reasons. People get all dressed up, as cars get souped up in Miami. Then people walk up and down the dirt road, greeting each other and checking out each other’s new digs, quietly masking the jealousy they feel that their neighbor has a brand new lime green sequin studded kicks, and you do not.

These Gambians are souped up in every way that a person can be souped up. They add unnecessary accessories everywhere. They wear sunglasses when it’s not sunny. They wear glasses without glass in it. They wear earrings that are way too shiny and plastic. They wear high heeled shoes that sink into the sandy road that you must walk down to get anywhere.

3. Tobaski is a bloodbath.
Tobaski is a bloodbath for only one reason. This reason is that thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of rams lose their lives during this holiday. What makes it different from other holidays where everybody eats the same animal (like Thanksgiving) is that every family has to slaughter and butcher their own meat. I had the pleasure of watching one particularly wealthy family slaughter their three rams. I could go into details of the bloodbath: the sound like a balloon being released when they cut through the windpipe; the pit dug for the blood to run; the spurting that was not as much as I expected, but more than I was comfortable with; the copious buzzards circling over the scene of the carnage. I heard later that in our little village of Nyakoi, over three thousand rams were killed… WHAT? And each ram runs a family like three or four thousand dalasi. That’s a lot of money wasted for a little bit of tough, gristly meat.

The holiday in itself was incredibly boring. Most of the day was getting ready to go out, and then walking around and doing nothing, and then eating some tough meat. Party on.