Warning -- Tobaski Ramicide Pictures

I talked about Tobaski in an earlier post before I went to Mariama Kunda for Tobaski.  Tobaski arrived and was a bright, sunny, hot day.  It took me 2 taxi rides and 2 gelly rides to get to Mariama Kunda.  I found that riding in air conditioned splendor in a Peace Corps vehicle is definitely a preferable way to go.  But when I arrived my family was glad to see me and I was made to feel very welcome.  There were 3 of us PCVs there, Xander who stayed with my family a year and a half before I did, Rita a PCV who is in training and staying with them, and me. My family was happy to get the pictures that I had had printed but Xander had even more special pictures.  When he was there they had a six year old son who died about six months before I arrived.  I had no idea there had been another child until I had left their village and another volunteer filled me in on the details.  Apparently when someone dies people do not talk about him -- and they did not.  But Kumba was very excited to get the pictures and told me these were .pictures of her son who had died.  I think he died of liver disease but they said yellow fever.  The Peace Corps doc said that when someone is jaundiced they will say it is yellow fever, but yellow fever has been eradicated in The Gambia.

Since I am not a Muslim the interesting part of the day (other than seeing my family) for me was the slaughter of the ram.  The ram had been washed and was clean and snowy white.  They had dug a small pit in front of where the ram's neck.  In the photo below Xander and Momodu, my host brother, are holding the back of the ram.  My host father is hold the ram's mouth and is reaching behind himself for the knife.  I am happy to report that he used a brand new knife for the ramicide.

In the next picture he has cut the wind pipe and arteries and is allowing the blood to flow into the pit, which you can see is right in front of the clothesline (??? -- not where I would have placed it).

In the last picture they have broken the ram's neck.  Apparently they are not allowed to break his neck until he has bled out into the pit.  That is a part of the tradition that is not so humane because our ram actually tried to get up before they broke his neck.  But he did not make one sound.

Once they had finished, they skinned him and prepared him for cooking. Another part of the tradition says that the heart and liver must be cooked and served first. Here is the plate they served to us.  The yellow things are french fries (even in the Gambia), there is a rib visible that was tasty and a couple of bites of mutton, but the rest were bites of liver.  I am proud to say that I ate several bites of liver without a fuss and it turns out that Xander did not even eat one.  .

During the preparation.and meal, neighbors were over with platters of ram meat and Kumba prepared platters to give to the neighbors.

After the liver and potatoes was gone they served the main dish meal which was more palatable than the liver. Meanwhile the Gambian sun was at its peak with not a breath of wind.  Sweat was poring off everyone.  I was leary about leaving too late so I left about the time that the neighbors were arriving in their fancy dress.  The same group of women who had been there for Ramadan showed up for Tobaski.  They are Kumba's buddies.  I was so hot when I got back to Fajara that I went straight to the transit house to sit in air conditioned splendor.  One of the PCVs there said that the heat index that day was 124.  Now that is hot..  Enough said.