thejunglebook: Korité

It’s official. I survived my first Ramadan in Senegal. Thirty days of getting up at 5:00 a.m. to eat breakfast with the family, of listening to prayers in Arabic being projected over the loud speakers of the Mosque all day, of attempting to hold meetings only for people to show without any ambition to concentrate due to their excessive thirst and hunger, and of having people approach me and ask me if I was fasting. Honestly, I thought I would hate Ramadan, but I actually really enjoyed it after I got into my routine. Sure, I was up early for breakfast, but my family usually had delicious fondé (a buttermilk rice porridge). I would typically go back to bed until about 8:30 a.m. and have the entire day to attend to my tasks without the long break of lunch (which is usually about 2 hours in the middle of each day). At some point in the day, I would make myself something small for lunch and relax or get done what I needed to for the afternoon. It was great. I actually felt like I had much more control over my day. Also, my family usually eats dinner late, around 10:00 p.m. However, during Ramadan, we’d have “first dinner” right after everyone broke fast around 8 p.m. Each day, we’d break fast with the call of prayer from the mosque at dusk. My family always broke fast with some bread and chocolate and butter and café or kinkiliba tea, which are really tasty leaves from the bush. I’d put little powered milk in mine and it was delicious. Since my family wasn’t spending any money on lunch, our dinner was a much better such as pasta and meat dish or Moroccan cous cous.

The end of Ramadan is marked with a festive day called Korité. All the men go to the mosque to pray in the morning dressed in their finest. The families usually slaughter a sheep or a goat for the fete. You ask all your friends and family to forgive you for any wrong doings you may have inflicted upon them knowing or unknowing. You also ask that God blesses that family and the next year and that he allows us to celebrate this holiday next year. In the afternoon, the kids get dressed up and go around greeting their friends and neighbors. The little kids go door to door asking for “dewelin” which is money for a party (it’s kinda like our version of trick-or-treating, I guess).

I let my host brother, Djiby Sow, take my camera to the mosque. These four guys live at my house.

This is another shot at the mosque of my neighbors, Mamadou Camera with his son Omar.

I helped my sister, Marie Diaw, cook lunch for Korité, which took all morning, but was delicious. My counterpart, Balla, slaughtered a goat in the morning. We cut it up and cooked in a sauce and made pommes frites (french fries), with hardboiled egg, and a veggie and mayo side dressing. I just did what I was told to do: stir the sauce, peel potatoes and onions, cut veggies, hold the meat while my sister or mom makes a cut, etc. However, my family told me that they really liked “my Korité lunch” that “I cooked.”

My sister, Marie Diaw, putting the finishing touches on dinner.

Our Korité lunch.

After lunch it rained for a while so I didn’t go out to greet anyone until kind of late. My friend who I work with in the community garden had a dress made for me for the fete. Even though it was complete white in the middle of rainy season, I still wore it out. I visited a couple homes and then came back home and took a few pics with my host sisters. My host sisters decided not to go around greeting people because it was so muddy out, so they went around the next day. I managed to make it though the evening in my white complet without slipping in the mud, so I would call the day a success. Now, it’s time for me to get back into the swing of my “normal” Senegalese lifestyle.