Walking home to my house in Mouit the other night I witnessed the most spectacular natural event in my entire life. After a long and oddly fascinating day in Saint Louis, I was making my way along the dirt road guided by the not yet operational electrical lines. The sky above was mostly overcast, though there were a few clusters of stars and the planet Mars that shone through the cover. That they revealed themselves in these beautiful clear patches sturck me as somewhat mystical, certainly beautiful.

Then came the "event." Though clearly not an expert in astronomy, what I guess to have been a meteor burned through the air above my head in the space of a long enough second and a half to awe the air out of my lungs. A bright ball of pure light, like the end of a welder's torch seared into the atmosphere with a bright tail, almost pinkish, moving faster than anything I've ever seen in the heavens. The entire sky was lit up in its passing. The light reflected off the clouds and the whole of my darkness was suddenly bright as day for a split second. As my diaphragm contracted my mind richocheted between meteor, missile, comet, and UFO. I have seen shooting stars, but this was unlike any "star" I've ever seen. It looked as though a collision with our fragile planet was just nearly avoided, and suddenly I felt very small.

Another amazing sunset for a great day



The bowl of freshly butchered sheep



My brother Solemon holding a sheep's testicle, a special snack for Senegalese kids on Tabaski



My brothers busy preparing one of the sheep



My father Adama reading from the Quran during the prayer, his assistants holding the shawl behind his head



The men of the village lined up for the prayer before the slaughter



Adama approaches the gathering of men to lead the prayer



Prayer beads run through most of the mens' hands


We celebrated Tabaski the other day. Nothing since I've been here has more effectively demonstrated the base, native, brutal, hungry, and carniverous human appetite than this Muslim holiday that celebrates God telling Abraham to slaughter a sheep instead of his son to show his devotion and faith. Everyone in Senegal slaughters a sheep and it was my first chance to see this up close. My father Adama slaughtered two sheep and a goat.

My timid brothers transformed into butchers, each wielding a machete or freshly-sharpened knife, separating sinew from meat, meat from bone, bone from skin. Watching them reach into the sheeps' ribcages and literally tear their hearts out followed by lungs, liver, gallbladder, kidneys, stomach, small intestines, large intestines, and of course the testicles, I just couldn't help but think that the dissection units in American high school biology classes simply could never compare.

As my mother Tabara fanned the coals beneathed freshly extracted livers, my two year old brother Soloman carried around three testicles, each one much larger than his hands. My brother Modou was "beying" at me as held the decapitated head of our goat in front of his face. Pape hacked away at the ram's horns, shards of bone flying my way as I tried to snap a few photos of my family meat market.

Spots of blood decorated everyone except me and I don't think I've felt like such a foreigner or such a fragile Westerner until now. I think I will have to take part in the slaughter as a rite of passage into manhood before going back to the bright fluorescent, refrigerated meat aisle at the neighborhood grocery store at home.

Chris Murphy, the volunteer I visited in Sokone for "demystification," exuded a confidence and mafia like generosity that made me nostalgic for Emil D'Elletto, the Italian chef that was a mentor of mine for many summers on the Jersey shore. Tonight I met Jimmy Walter, a former Peace Corps volunteer in Guatamala, who ended his service in 2004. He and his beautiful English girlfriend Emily, who works for the World Bank, were on the Plymouth-Banjul rally cross from England to the Gambia. Jimmy and Emily are sponsored in their old-school tank like diesel MERC, or Mercedes Benz by an AIDS education and awareness campaign. They are passing out fake dog tags with the word SPEAK on them. The package they come in shows a picture of Christina Aguleira with tape over her mouth. Ironic I know. I took a large stack to pass out to young adults in my village.

The hazy settee area of the Zebrabar, my local campement and bar, was a saloon of travellers this evening- English, French, German, American, Swiss, Austrailian, South African, and Senegalese. The 100+ people at the normally calm campement feasted on marinated filet tenderloins along with salad, sweet potatos and carrots. They topped it all off chocolate cake and a banana cream custard that I got to take a sample of thanks to the insistent prodding of Jimmy, who in true form as a Peace Corps volunteer, made me take the free desert, no questions asked.

With over 60 steaks on the grill, many a beer flowing, and the music of everything between Manu Chao and Senegalese Sabaar, the night was not the antidote, but perhaps an aftertaste of letting go of just enough control over my life and my post here. It was really a quite a deluge of flavorful conversation, music, dancing, and of course my dinner of rice and beans which I was cheap enough to go home for while the crowd feasted on their filets.

An Englishman named Philip offered to buy me dinner, a whopping 6000CFA, or about $12, not cheap for me. In declining though, I did hedge a free beer, and got use Emily's satellite phone to call home. What a surreal experience to chat with my mom from a satellite phone in my village that has no electricity or phone lines. If rallies like these came every night to my village I'd be in trouble, but once in a while would be just fine by me.

Friday afternoon was a special day in my village- a celebration for the homecoming of a man who had made the Haj to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. While I couldn't understand most of what was said at the gathering, I watched with curious eyes as a very touching moment unfolded. All the men of the village were seated fon mats in the man's courtyard. I walked in to fifty pairs of eyes following each step I took as I approached Adama, my village host father and the village chief and imam.

I sat with him in the circle of elders he was surrounded by, all dressed in beautiful kaftans, many of them passing prayer bead after prayer bead through their hands as they listened closely to the man describe his journey. While he went over the time it took to get there, how the city looked, and how all kinds of Muslims from across the globe were there, the men affirmed his details with collective murmurs of Mmhhmm. He commanded great attention while he spoke. After giving the details of the journey he began to thank the people that made his Haj possible, starting with his father. The man began to cry, thanking his father for teaching him to be a good Muslim, for helping him get an education and a good job to have the money to go. His father sat stone faced, weeping as well. Almost all of the men around me were glassy eyed.

After thanking everyone, the man was finished and Adama led the group in a prayer. Everyone sat with their palms open toward the sky and repeated his prayer. I held my hands open and couldn't help but thinking that I would never have experienced a day like this as a simple tourist or traveller.

After prayer attaya was served for everyone and suddenly the conversation shifted to me. Before I had gotten my first cup of tea I was being grilled by Adama's friends about wheterh I know how to make attaya, if I was Muslim, if I had a wife, since I didn't have a wife did I want a Senegalese wife?

I did my best to respond to each question and with a little help from Adama had the group smiling over my description of how many wives he has, what their names are, and how, if you add my host mother in Thies, my host mother mother from Paris, my mom and my stepmom, I actually have 7 mothers. The group really liked this and with nods of approval the conversation returned to the man who had gone to Mecca.