Tabaski
A guy I dated while living in Chiang Mai, Thailand made a post on Facebook. He had just moved to Senegal for work. He was invited to take part in preparations for the holiday Tabaski. They asked him to slaughter a sheep.
By the look on his face he really didn’t want to do it. He spared his friends photos of the best parts- blood pouring out of the sheep’s neck, intestines spilling out onto the floor. It’s done to commemorate Ibraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son, Ismael, to Allah.
I’ve been in enough Anthropology classes to know what goes on at these things, so I wondered why he only included photos of the sheep happy and alive, it being tied down, him chopping up a huge pile of meat showing his inner conflict flexing as much as his strong arm muscles, the final dish.
Was he in such shock he forgot to snap a photo? Or, did he take some, but find them too gruesome for social media? Does Meta remove such content? And if it does, wouldn’t that be a display of American hegemony? To say the sensitivities of the West are more important than full depictions of local traditions?
His caption spelled out how jarring it was for him to see an animal go from full of life to a meal. He identified with this sheep, and felt he himself was being eaten. Guilty for having consumed so many animals before, and at the same time, nostalgic for the older version of himself who could eat meat and enjoy it.
The last time we had a long talk in person, he was applying for this job. So, I sent him a private message to ask how he was adapting.
“It’s okay for now. Where are you?”
“I’m in New Jersey. I will go to Scotland at the end of July.”
“You are in New Jersey. Ok you can come to Senegal by direct flight from new York to Dakar lol”
How forward? And clear! It’s nice to know where I stand. “You want me to come? [laughing emoji]”
“You can stay at my place anytime”
The rest of the day, I found myself drifting off, wondering what it would be like to go to Senegal. Google searches indicate the US Department of State lists Senegal as a Travel 1 country- exercise normal precautions, just like you would in, say, France. YouTube vlogs show friendly, open locals and modern-looking life in Dakar. I could learn firsthand about the transatlantic slave trade and about how Islam came to be the region’s dominant religion. Take a class in Wolof, the local language, and eat Jollof, a West African rice dish. My last name is Solof. I wonder how everyone will react to this white, American, half-Jewish woman named Solof speaking Wolof eating Jollof. I want to go!
It’s been a while since I’ve had this feeling of fantasy and excitement around traveling to a new place. I’ve been state-side since September, so focused on writing and preparing a show for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August I didn’t notice how thirsty for travel I had become.
Sometimes you need an old lover to slaughter a sheep to rip open what’s inside of you.
