A Sick Vol’s Take on Korite

Sorry, this is long. You don’t have to read it all, but I wanted to chronicle the end of Ramadan even just for myself.

So Tuesday was the official last day of Ramadan, marking the end of 29 days of fasting from sunrise to sunset. The end of Ramadan was officially celebrated on Wednesday, one of the biggest holidays in Senegal (and the greater Islamic world, I presume), known as Korite. While I do not understand absolutely everything about this holiday, it mainly involves eating a lot, putting on brand new clothes, and going around and asking forgiveness from family/friends/neighbors for how you have wronged them over the past year, sharing blessings and prayers with each other. Kids also go around from house to house, dressed nicely, and people give them money. Unfortunately, I was not able to fully enjoy the fête as much as I would have liked, so here’s my take.

Tuesday night, from 10:15pm until 5:20am, the people of my village held what I believe was an all-night prayer service at the mosque. While I was not physically in attendance, the fact that my head in my bed is a mere 50m (if that) from the mosque and they hooked up a mic and amp to the only electrical source in town, I felt like I was in attendance all night, constantly waking up, hearing the chanting of prayers, and checking the time (it’s midnight/1am/3am/5am/etc). Rough night’s sleep, especially when I awoke to the chanting at 1:30am with chills and knowing I had a fever…fab). People went back to sleep for a few hours and around 7am, I stumbled out of bed, feeling sick as a dog, opened my front door (but with the curtain down so people would leave me alone), and dove back into bed. Around 8, I was roused by a sister to come for breakfast (yummy millet and sour yogurt, something I had been looking forward to since early Ramadan). However, my head was pounding too much that I could barely reply as the people at my bowl commented on how my spoon was to small to eat properly and wanting me to greet them better, etc. I threw myself into bed for another few hours, noises rising and falling and large groups of people come and go from my compound and the men go off to a huge prayer service by a mango tree (um?). Around 10ish, a group of kids knock on my door, dressed in their finest, greeting me, asking me to forgive them, and telling me directions for how to reply. My head was pounding unlike any headache I had ever had before in my life, sick to my stomach, and fighting back tears, while not really understanding what they were saying. This was a bad omen for how the rest of my morning would play out and it only got worse, as soon all of the old and important men, as well as the young university-ages ones, start coming to my door, rousing me from my bed, chair, floor, bathroom, or however I was trying to comfort my pains, all while not being dressed nice enough to compare with what the men were wearing (formal clothes vs my pjs with a pagne tied around my waist…). At one point my counterpart comes by, doing the same, and then wants to come into my hut. I try explaining that I’m sick and trying to rest, but he comes in, starts walking around talking about masons and carpenters (thanks to my fab APCD putting some wheels in motion, I should have a window in my hut within the next week), me only partially understanding. He keeps talking, my head keeps pounding, and more and more older men keep coming to my door, some wanting to come in and me trying to block others out since I didn’t want my room on display at that moment. It was rough, that’s for sure. However, one of the men who came by happens to be the mason or carpenter who will be putting in the window, so at least that got figured out, kinda.

Anyway, I couldn’t figure out if I should put my new clothes on or not, but used my sisters as a model and since they were running around in their normal chores clothes, when I stepped out I basically did the same thing. Though I was sick and they knew it, I still wanted to see what was going on with this fête (party). I watched some of my sisters cooking a goat (or lamb?) and oily noodles with onion sauce, which turned out to be the standard fare across the village for the day. I sat around with some of the kids a bit too when all of the sudden a great hoard of men and little boys come rushing into our compound, no longer as nicely dressed as they had been earlier. They hurry by, hands oily as the shake my hand and pass me by and then I realize that they are going from house to house across the village, eating as much food as possible. My sisters (both sides of the family) bring out dish after dish and bring them into different rooms. The little boys and younger men storm the rooms where they are served, grabbing handfuls of oily noodles and running out, while the older (and more “notable”) men take their time eating in private rooms. My sisters and I start making fun of one of our 18 year old bros who ran into a room, stuffed his face, and came out holding a HUGE handful of oily noodles that he proceeded to jam into his mouth as well. With a mouthful of noodles, he just insists “it’s no longer Ramadan, so of course I’m going to have fun and stuff my face!” Almost as fast as it started, the young men and boys are off to the next house, with the older men trailing after a more relaxed meal.

Sisters from both sides of my family then gather in the middle of the compound, with two or three bowls of similar yet different oily noodles and goat meat. I eat a bit, them all once again commenting on how small my spoon is and how bad it is for eating properly (we’ve been having this same discussion for 5 months, really?) and my head is pounding, so I’m not much of a sport. I quickly disappear to my room, wanting to pass out on my bed again when a knock comes and it’s one of my younger sisters with a lunch bowl from Sally, an awesome lady from my village who was with me when I fell off the charret. In it was peas in a spicy onion sauce, a hunk of presumably goat meat, and half a loaf of village bread—yum! After eating some and giving the rest back to my family, I try to pass out again, occasionally being roused with offers of juice or tea or whatever. As I’m laying there, head pounding (stupid 600 mg ibuprofen didn’t do a thing!), and the drumming on metal bowls starts…really?!?! I lay there, zoning in and out, younger kids constantly rapping on my door to get me to come out and dance. After a while, I tell myself “this is a big holiday, try and see a little bit of it,” so I go out and sit in the middle of my compound with my sisters who are just sitting around, helping the little kids get dressed in their nice and new clothes again. Kids from other compounds come around in groups, greeting but not doing anything else but awkwardly standing around for a little bit, and then continue on their way. I had heard through the grapevine something about a holiday where kids go around dressed up asking for money from people and realize that this is that holiday. Evidently, you are not obliged to give every kid money or even any of them for that matter. Some sisters gave one of their visiting friends money when she came around and she asked me for some, but still confused and sick, I just kind of sat there, only partially understanding what was going on.

After awhile, my sisters start disappearing to bathe and get dressed up and I do the same. I put on this tie-dyed dress that my Thies family gave me with my jeans (that don’t really fit anymore, mind you) since it’s a little too short to be alone and my bright blue sparkly Senegalese shoes and my family LOVED it (sorry, I don’t have any pics due to my lovely sickness). Then two of my sisters in their teens head out of the compound and tell me to follow them. Thinking it was just to do the standard apologizing (wasaani huk) of the day, I go with them, only to realize that they were dragging me around to get money in our new clothes too. Not what I had planned on… The first few houses gave us money, mainly because they were excited to see this white girl in Senegalese clothing, and my sisters were excited about the promise of lots of money from having me with them, but we soon turned into the rest of the kids awkwardly standing around and greeting people and then not being given money. I felt ridiculous because, well, I obviously don’t need the meager coins that people were giving me and should have been giving money myself, plus feeling sick, but didn’t really know how to turn back, so just went around with them and tried to be friendly and social with the people we ran into (mostly successful, though a group of older men reprimanded me for greeting the women but not the men—because they didn’t hear or respond to me when I greeted them. Whatever). It was kind of fun, kind of awkward, but let my sisters split my 100 cfe ($0.25) rather than take it myself. As we walked around, my sisters told me that there was going to be a wrestling ceremony after dinner in the village and Sally had prior told me that there would be a big drum party at the Imam’s house, so I was excited for the promise of more fête, even if I was still somewhat sick. Dinner was more of the oily rice with maybe a chicken leg and much to the protests of the family, barely ate anything. I sat around with my family for the rest of the evening as we watching Senegalese MTV, or so it seemed, waiting for the rest of the activities to start (people were still dressed up, so I figured it was for something). Well, by 10pm nothing had happened so to the protests of my family (“but today’s a fête!”), I head to bed, to curl up with Harry Potter and hope that the pains in my stomach would soon subside. Around 11 or so, still reading Harry Potter and feeling terrible, I hear someone testing a mic (again?) and soon crazy loud Senegalese club music starts blasting from near the mosque (yet again, not far from my head). I get up and see that huge lights and amps have been set up on just the other side of my fence, meaning I will get NO sleep all night, in addition to this unknown illness. Fab. Well, the party went until after 3am or so, and while I would have loved to have been dancing and enjoying such a huge holiday celebration, I was just not having it and was excited to escape here to Kaolack first thing in the morning (barely anyone in my family was awake for me to even let them know where I was going).

Such was my first major Islamic holiday in the village. Hopefully Tabaski in two months will go much better… I know fellow PCVs enjoyed the holiday, it just wasn’t my day.