Silence of th Rams

Tobaski
Caution:Lots of dead ram in the blog post

Holidays here just don’t do it for me. I’m all about eating ram and putting on a fancy outfit, but other than that there isn’t much else. That doesn’t mean it’s all boring but it lacks something that American holidays have. Maybe its Christmas lights, family and friends, dark beer, whatever it is I can’t put my finger on it.

Today (November 17^th) was Tobaski. It is a Muslim holiday to celebrate Abraham being so devoted to God (AKA Allah over here) that he was willing to sacrifice his son. What’s that?! Muslims and Christians sharing the same background of their religions?! You don’t say! Hey Nigeria (and world), you can stop fighting each other now. I digress. I woke up early, got on my kompleto, and walked out to the bush with my host grandma (Mama Ami). A year ago in training village people prayed outside of the mosque. Here at my site people go to the eastern most part of the village, in a field, and pray. It was really beautiful actually. It was a bright blue day with a slight breeze. We sat under Mango Trees in a clearing surrounded by tall green grass that slides up to a large hillside, and it was quiet since we were outside of village.

The men (old and young) come and sat on mats in lines towards the front. The women (only older women allowed, and me) sat in the back. Everyone gets up and does the prayer, then a group of elderly men gather in a huddle with a sheet on their heads and pray for the village. I wish I had a picture of this because it’s hard to describe and even at the time I thought it seemed odd. There is a tall stick with a large sheet draped over it. Men (maybe 4-7) stand up under it and loudly pray for things. Everyone else sits and listens. Then it’s done and people leave a different way than they came.

When I got home my host family had already killed the ram, well, it was in the process of dying. I’m not sad for this ram because he had a thing for ramming small children whenever they got around him. I seriously once saw a 2 year old fly 3 feet after a head butt to the chest (yes, in hind sight I should have noticed him being close to the ram and moved him, but....what can I say, I’m just going to be a terrible parent some day).

Everyone walks around and says prayers for each other. When they do, the receiver is supposed to tap their forehead and say "ammin". Of course I can't recognize a prayer to save my life so I'm sure lots of well meaning old men and women walked out of my compound a little confused with me.

After an hour ram meat starts flowing through the village. People are giving ram to each other left and right. My host brother was hacking bits of meat behind me with a machetti and eventually my host dad handed me a huge handful of bone and meat. I don’t really have any previous experience with meat butchering but I managed to make ram strips with soy sauce and garlic. I walked around different compounds and gave it away. People looked at my plate of meat with varying reactions. One woman tossed it around with her hand while glaring and saying “what is this?” while others just smiled bravely and threw a piece in their mouths.

Lunch comes late but it’s well worth it. It’s bennechin with meat, potato, eggplan, and squash. I’m still in a food comma. Holidays and parties are the only time I get food that resembles the lunches that PC used to put on for us. The more veggies the better but in real life that hardly happens.

Towards the end of the day I put on my red and gold sparkling kompleto (thanks Ousman) and walked around and greeted people. It is more of a thing the kids and teens do. They dress up and walk compound to compound asking for “Salibo”, which just means money. It ends up being like Halloween but instead of costumes it’s nice clothes and instead of candy its money. This evening greeting party goes on for a couple nights and fizzles out after a couple days.

My "epic" kompleto. Many a' ladies were jealous about this one.

This is me cutting up my handful of ram.

This is the ram who we ate. I later saw this head boiled and put on top of my host dad's dinner. I was surprised to say the least.

This is my host grandmother praying for my neighbor. He is tapping his head and saying "ammin"

This is ngebbe. I think there is tomato in it....I don't really know but we only have it on special occasions. Its a bit slimy but not too bad.

These are some ladies from my compound in their Kompletos. People like to wear the same thing to show they are in a group so that is why some are dress the same. Most are extended family. The woman holding an infant and the one to the right of her are my host moms.

This is a picture of my school, teachers, and the students.

Creature comforts

Foreword: This post was written a month ago but was delayed in posting.

Insects. They come and come, and always seem to go for the face. Remember all the commercials for sponsoring Africa orphans? The flies are actually like that sometimes. Biking uphill, with a fly persistently trying to land on your face is slow torture, and it happens, a lot.

There are 3 different creatures that have been continuously annoying me lately. Wasps, termites, and worms.

Since the rains are slowly coming to an end I suddenly remember “Oh yeah, termites love eating my fence and house.” How could I have forgotten? Last year my back door was on its last leg after termites ate all the border wood and started on the main body of the door. It was a daily bug spray and sweeping battle. Just today I discovered they are trying to eat my window and their trail leads somewhere into my walls. It’s just cement and dirt in there so i don’t really know what they would be doing but after seeing damage other volunteers have experienced, I know trouble must be brewing in there. Last week I spent 6 hours with another volunteer rebuilding my privacy fence in my back yard and just a couple days later I found the spiky mud of termite infiltration. It’s a losing battle I feel.

Wasps love me. I love killing them. It’s not just wasps but all flying stinging creatures. I was stung by a hornet (and honestly, I can’t really tell the difference between wasps and hornet so I might use the phrase interchangeably) last month. It got me in the back of the shoulder before cowardly running off into my Mango tree. A week later I got stung twice on the thumb as I tried to close my back door. How was I supposed to know some little red and yellow wasps had moved in? Man, it hurt so badly. My whole thumb swelled up and in a culture that loves to shake your hand, it was a problem. At any given time my backyard has something with a stinger in flight. Doing laundry never fails to be a time of ducking and weaving to avoid these guys. Today, as I was sitting innocently washing clothes in my backyard I felt an itch on my back. Doing laundry outside always includes little bugs biting me or something landing on me and causing an itch. When I went to brush my back I managed to roll something far bigger than a fly across my back. It instantly hurt on my hand and back and I thought “geeze! That hurt, it kinda felt like a wasps sting, man!”. When I looked at the ground what did I see but a little yellow and red wasp. I killed it but that thing managed to sting both my hand and back. I kill them in my house daily.

The last but surely not least is the parasite I had. About 3 months ago I noticed an itching on the side of my foot. I had a red bump so I figured it might have been a mosquito bite. A week later it was still there. I thought “well, i guess a mosquito got me twice”. Mosquitos love feet. I ended up waiting. PC people are covered in rashes all the time. Bumps and itches come and go. I wasn’t worried. A month and a half went by. I started to forget how long I had had it. 2 weeks? 5 weeks? I finally called the med unit. Over the phone saying “My foot itches....” of course just sounds like a fungus. I put cream on it and noticed that the itch started to be in a different area. In a week it had moved about an inch. When I say “move” I don’t mean I could see it moving, it moved slowly, sometimes painfully at a crawl. So, called the med unit again. “I have a moving itch that has travelled an inch towards my toe...” sound like a worm. By the time I got a cream for it the worm had moved about 2 inches. I put that on and about a week later it was dead. I had imagined I would go to Kombo for some toe cutting worm removal thing. It was less exciting. Worms in real life aren’t like the show Monsters Inside Me, at least not for me, yet.