Happy Paques ! Spending Easter in Senegal without my family was much, much more difficult than I thought it would be. I think what made it so hard was that I knew exactly what my family was doing and that they were all together while I was chilling in Senegal. However, this Easter was so COMPLETELY unlike every other Easter I’ve had before and (at the risk of sounding too cliché) it gave me a new perspective on traditions that I have always taken for granted.
Thursday Night-
Lindsay and I came home from WARC and discovered our kitchen in shambles. The eating table was missing (we later found out that Ben moved it upstairs by himself) and was replaced by our maman, our two sisters and about fifty tons of peanut-paste --which should not be confused with peanut butter. You would be in for some jafé jafés (ie: problems) if you do that. They were making Ngalax, which is a peanut stew that all of the Catholic families make and give out to their Muslim friends for Easter. To return the favor-for payback, if you will- the Muslim families make couscous for their Catholic friends for the Muslim New Year. I would argue, however, that the Catholics get the short end of this deal since 90 percent of the country is Muslim. Not only do we end up eating couscous for days and days, the Catholics also must make SOOOOO much Ngalax. According to maman, our family made enough to feed over two hundred people.
Anyway. Thursday night. Lindsay and I were invited to stay while we took pictures. Ngalax starts with HUGE bowls of Baobab fruit (the white stuff) and then a generous glob of peanut sauce is added. They then drown the stuff in water, cover it and then leave it for about 6 hours. They were finished with the drowning at about 11 pm, so they then woke up at 5 am (five freak
ing AM) to finish it. Lindsay and I were the designated photographers, so we got up too.
Friday Morning
We all got up at five in the morning (although Lindsay and I MIGHT, or might not have, stole an extra few minutes of sleep) and discovered that the baobab-fruit-peanut-paste mix turned into this sludgy mud looking goop. Sounds delicious, n’est-ce pas? Our maman and sisters then stir it up with their hands while our maid makes some millet in this GIANT pot. After the peanut stuff gets stirred up, they women then go through and sift it about four times (I’m guessing we had about twenty gallons of this stuff...it took HOURS to shift). It’s a bit hard to explain, especially since I was only half conscious. Lindsay and I took photos, although our mother did let us help pour some water from one pot to another while telling the other to take a photo. haha. I think she wanted to make sure we each had a photo of us helping, which was cute of her! Lindsay and I also helped open sugar packets, so we made QUITE a contribution to the Paques festivities. Then, at about seven thirty-ish, we passed out in our beds while the others continue to prepare the ngalax.
At about nine/ten-ish, I finally dragged my lazy butt out of bed and took a shower. In the kitc
hen, the women were done making the ngalax and they were bottling it up in the water bottles (the mystery of why they were collecting them was finally solved-yay!) while the boys and Astou were delivering them to the families. While I was taking my shower, maman gave Lindsay a nice large cup of ngalax which Lindsay GRACIOUSLY left for me to drink when I got out of the shower. The best way to describe ngalax is a very, VERY rich peanut butter that is a but more liquidy and mixed with millet. It tastes pretty good, but it’s so rich that I cannot drink much of it, so after the first sip or two I have to choke it down. But the taste is good =)
That night, Lindsay and I wanted to go out with our friends, although we were hesitant to leave because for the last few times, we’ve been getting locked out of our house for about a half our before we can get a hold of someone. Baxul. Well, we decided to take our chances and go out anyway. When we told Margot (our sister) she gave us a weird look and said no. We were like, ‘uh, no. We are going out, we’re just telling you’. The sisters were pretty adamant that we couldn’t got out because it was Friday night, which meant it was still Lent. Even our maid Astou whose Muslim was like ‘no, you can’t go out tonight. You have to wait until Saturday night after midnight’. Nobody is supposed to go out or drink during all of Lentt I guess since Lent is technically over on Sunday at midnight (Saturday night), EVERYONE goes out then. FYI, Muslims are technically never supposed to drink and Catholics aren’t supposed to drink during Lent, but there’s still a TON of alcohol being sold during Lent, so NOBODY pays attention to this rule. We thought it would make sense to explain that we were going to a Easter party. False. That caused more problems. I was trying to explain an Easter basket with candy and Marie-Thérèse was like “no, that’s Halloween. That’s October 31st.” and looked at me like I was stupid. In the end, we just left anyway.
Sunday!!
Remember how I said that the traditions were completely different here? Well, the only thing that remained th
e same is that we went to church. Well, Lindsay and I went. The sisters went. I’m not sure about the others (I was a bit shocked that it wasn’t a large family event. Our house is like Jesusland.) After church, we kept our sisters and maman company while they made the meal. We had four types of meat-chicken, pork, beef and lamb-that was made on this little gas stove. Our mother told us that we could invite three of our friends who lived with Muslims over (and that number turned into five once our maman and Alice’s maman got involved...long story), so a little after noon, Lindsay collected our fellow toubabs-Baird, Sara, Ginger, Alex and Alice-from myshop while my family quizzed me on what type of alcohol everyone would want. When the Americans got here, we were ushered onto the balcony which was set up for us (yes, we were contained from the rest of the family). Margot then gave us beer, whisky and Pastis, or something spelled like that (an AMAZING alcohol from Marseilles that tastes like a black jelly bean...yum). I’ll just post photos of the food we ate because words can’t really describe how happy we were....except we were all very, VERY happy =) Then we were invited up to drink with our brothers. We went and had a really fun time and got some GREAT photos =)
When it was tim
e for our toubabs to leave, I called my family at home to see what they were up to. Like usual, they had an Easter egg hunt with my youngest cousins and the neighbor kids (my mom had to take over my job of stuffing/hiding the eggs) and ate a ton of good food. I was SO happy to talk to them too (especially since my maman spent a good chunk of time telling me that I don’t understand Wolof). Later that night, our brother Edouard made Lindsay and I go upstairs with our brothers to take photos. We ended up dancing with our brothers and getting some SWEET photos of them. Then our sister Marie-Thérèse rescued us =)
Thursday Night-
Lindsay and I came home from WARC and discovered our kitchen in shambles. The eating table was missing (we later found out that Ben moved it upstairs by himself) and was replaced by our maman, our two sisters and about fifty tons of peanut-paste --which should not be confused with peanut butter. You would be in for some jafé jafés (ie: problems) if you do that. They were making Ngalax, which is a peanut stew that all of the Catholic families make and give out to their Muslim friends for Easter. To return the favor-for payback, if you will- the Muslim families make couscous for their Catholic friends for the Muslim New Year. I would argue, however, that the Catholics get the short end of this deal since 90 percent of the country is Muslim. Not only do we end up eating couscous for days and days, the Catholics also must make SOOOOO much Ngalax. According to maman, our family made enough to feed over two hundred people.
Anyway. Thursday night. Lindsay and I were invited to stay while we took pictures. Ngalax starts with HUGE bowls of Baobab fruit (the white stuff) and then a generous glob of peanut sauce is added. They then drown the stuff in water, cover it and then leave it for about 6 hours. They were finished with the drowning at about 11 pm, so they then woke up at 5 am (five freak
ing AM) to finish it. Lindsay and I were the designated photographers, so we got up too.Friday Morning
We all got up at five in the morning (although Lindsay and I MIGHT, or might not have, stole an extra few minutes of sleep) and discovered that the baobab-fruit-peanut-paste mix turned into this sludgy mud looking goop. Sounds delicious, n’est-ce pas? Our maman and sisters then stir it up with their hands while our maid makes some millet in this GIANT pot. After the peanut stuff gets stirred up, they women then go through and sift it about four times (I’m guessing we had about twenty gallons of this stuff...it took HOURS to shift). It’s a bit hard to explain, especially since I was only half conscious. Lindsay and I took photos, although our mother did let us help pour some water from one pot to another while telling the other to take a photo. haha. I think she wanted to make sure we each had a photo of us helping, which was cute of her! Lindsay and I also helped open sugar packets, so we made QUITE a contribution to the Paques festivities. Then, at about seven thirty-ish, we passed out in our beds while the others continue to prepare the ngalax.
At about nine/ten-ish, I finally dragged my lazy butt out of bed and took a shower. In the kitc
hen, the women were done making the ngalax and they were bottling it up in the water bottles (the mystery of why they were collecting them was finally solved-yay!) while the boys and Astou were delivering them to the families. While I was taking my shower, maman gave Lindsay a nice large cup of ngalax which Lindsay GRACIOUSLY left for me to drink when I got out of the shower. The best way to describe ngalax is a very, VERY rich peanut butter that is a but more liquidy and mixed with millet. It tastes pretty good, but it’s so rich that I cannot drink much of it, so after the first sip or two I have to choke it down. But the taste is good =)That night, Lindsay and I wanted to go out with our friends, although we were hesitant to leave because for the last few times, we’ve been getting locked out of our house for about a half our before we can get a hold of someone. Baxul. Well, we decided to take our chances and go out anyway. When we told Margot (our sister) she gave us a weird look and said no. We were like, ‘uh, no. We are going out, we’re just telling you’. The sisters were pretty adamant that we couldn’t got out because it was Friday night, which meant it was still Lent. Even our maid Astou whose Muslim was like ‘no, you can’t go out tonight. You have to wait until Saturday night after midnight’. Nobody is supposed to go out or drink during all of Lentt I guess since Lent is technically over on Sunday at midnight (Saturday night), EVERYONE goes out then. FYI, Muslims are technically never supposed to drink and Catholics aren’t supposed to drink during Lent, but there’s still a TON of alcohol being sold during Lent, so NOBODY pays attention to this rule. We thought it would make sense to explain that we were going to a Easter party. False. That caused more problems. I was trying to explain an Easter basket with candy and Marie-Thérèse was like “no, that’s Halloween. That’s October 31st.” and looked at me like I was stupid. In the end, we just left anyway.
Sunday!!
Remember how I said that the traditions were completely different here? Well, the only thing that remained th
e same is that we went to church. Well, Lindsay and I went. The sisters went. I’m not sure about the others (I was a bit shocked that it wasn’t a large family event. Our house is like Jesusland.) After church, we kept our sisters and maman company while they made the meal. We had four types of meat-chicken, pork, beef and lamb-that was made on this little gas stove. Our mother told us that we could invite three of our friends who lived with Muslims over (and that number turned into five once our maman and Alice’s maman got involved...long story), so a little after noon, Lindsay collected our fellow toubabs-Baird, Sara, Ginger, Alex and Alice-from myshop while my family quizzed me on what type of alcohol everyone would want. When the Americans got here, we were ushered onto the balcony which was set up for us (yes, we were contained from the rest of the family). Margot then gave us beer, whisky and Pastis, or something spelled like that (an AMAZING alcohol from Marseilles that tastes like a black jelly bean...yum). I’ll just post photos of the food we ate because words can’t really describe how happy we were....except we were all very, VERY happy =) Then we were invited up to drink with our brothers. We went and had a really fun time and got some GREAT photos =)When it was tim
e for our toubabs to leave, I called my family at home to see what they were up to. Like usual, they had an Easter egg hunt with my youngest cousins and the neighbor kids (my mom had to take over my job of stuffing/hiding the eggs) and ate a ton of good food. I was SO happy to talk to them too (especially since my maman spent a good chunk of time telling me that I don’t understand Wolof). Later that night, our brother Edouard made Lindsay and I go upstairs with our brothers to take photos. We ended up dancing with our brothers and getting some SWEET photos of them. Then our sister Marie-Thérèse rescued us =)
WE MISSED YOU ON EASTER. AUNT BRENDA SAID WE SHOULD TAKE OVER A NEW TRADITION IN HONOR OF YOUR FAMILY THERE AND NEXT EASTER....DRINK. I TAKE IT THEY DON'T DO THE EASTER CANDY AND EGG HIDING OVER THERE. DID YOU GET IN TROUBLE FOR GOING OUT ON FRIDAY. THEY ARE STRICT OVER THERE BEING CATHOLIC AND HAVING DIFFERENT CUSTOMS ABOUT BEING CATHOLIC THAN HERE. LOVE THE STORIES...KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK.
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