Tabaski

20 Novembre 2010
Hello people!! I hope that everyone is well and that you're all getting excited for Thanksgiving that is just around the corner! Life has been good since my last post. We came back from demystification in Maradi and have been in Hamdallye in classes. Hausa language learning is going well. Recently, we have learned the vocabulary for money and how to bargain at the market, or kasuwa in Hausa. This past Wednesday the 17th was the Muslim holiday of Tabaski. It was exciting to be in Hamdallye for it. Here is a bit of history about the Tabaski holiday:
According to the Muslim story, Abraham was told by Allah to slaughter his son. Abraham had a strong faith, so he brought his oldest son, Ishmael, as a sacrifice to Allah. The angel, Gabriel, saw that Abraham was going to sacrifice his son, and so he exchanged Ishmael for a sheep. Abraham sacrificed a sheep and his son was saved. The holiday is a reminder of Abraham's faith to Allah.
In Hamdallye, our Wednesday morning began at nine o'clock. At this time, there is a whole-village prayer. We got dressed up and walked to the mosque, which is a large speaker outside on a hill. At the mosque, the Chief of Hamdallye led the prayer and everyone prayed together. I have never seen so many people pray at the same time. After that, everyone walks back to their home to slaughter a sheep. In our home, our host dad Loyola and the eldest son, Abdu, slaughtered the sheep. All parts of the sheep are utilized or eaten in some way. The insides are cooked and eaten first. We had those for lunch with rice and meat sauce :). Yum! The rest of the sheep is slowly cooked, or smoked, over a fire for the rest of the afternoon. The meat is cooked all the way through and will last the whole family for the next week or so. It was interesting to walk around the village and see all the sheep being cooked outside. Ellie and I walked around and visited other trainees during the afternoon. We said "Barka da Salla" to everyone we say which means "Greeting on the holiday!" The response is "Barka kaddai" or "Greetings to all!"
On Thursday morning, the children of each household take meat and bring it to friends, family and poor people in the village. The holiday is not only about slaughtering a sheep and remembering the story of Abraham, but it is a reminder to give to the poor and be thankful for what you have. In a way, the holiday reminded me of Thanksgiving, except the turkey is replaced with a sheep or two. Also, when children in the village say "Barka da Salla", we gave them candy. Similar to Halloween and trick-or-treating in that sense. The kids had the whole week off of school and spend time in the home with their families.
...For health training this week, we learned about health providers and moringa. Health providers in this country are very different from the US. Because it is rare for people to go to college and earn degrees in healthcare, the majority of training is taught to providers in the clinic or health hut. The training is informal. They are taught how to consult with pregnant women, teach about nutrition, etc. We have visited two local health clinics, one in Hamdallye, one in the neighboring village of Barchewal. The clinic in Barchewal was staffed by one woman who provides all the consults, medicines and education for people who come by. The Hamdallye clinic is staffed by several women. She said that their busiest time of year is during the rainy season, when a large number of people get malaria. During that busy time, they average 200 consults a day. During the slowest time of year, now, they average 20 consults a day; the majority of consultations with pregnant women to give them iron and vitamins. In our villages, we will most likely have a health hut and not a clinic, but it was still important to see how the clinics run. We also learned about Moringa. It is known as "the miracle tree" because it is a quickly-growing tree that doesn't need a lot of water or fertile soil to flourish. The leaves of the moringa tree have, gram for gram, more potassium than bananas, more iron than spinach, more calcium than milk, and more Vitamin A than carrots. In Niger, the most common method of eating moringa leaves is to boil them for an hour and add them to couscous. Unfortunately, they lose the majority of their nutritional value when boiled. So, when we go to our villages, one of our projects is going to be education about how to harvest and prepare moringa in order to achieve the greatest nutrition from the leaves.
...Our host fam is doing well. They were all happy to have this whole week off from school and to spend time playing and working around the house. For Tabaski, our host dad constructed "walls" in the compound. The material was something similar to bamboo, but he roped them together and made walls around the house. It's difficult to explain, but it looks really cool. For Tabaski, Ellie and I gave our fam dates that we bought at the market. And we gave the kiddos candies when they said "Barka da Salla!"