Thanksgiving in Senegal
I’m writing this blog from the comfort of my hut. It’s all sorts of noisy outside. The roosters and cows are making an early morning din, my next-door neighbors are blasting malinke tunes on the radio, and there’s the almost ubiquitous ‘thump’ of women pounding corn with huge wooden mortars and pestals. Meanwhile I’m sitting on a bamboo chair underneath my grass thatched hut, listening to bluegrass tunes on a tape player and typing away on my computer. It’s an odd mix of the modern (I could even get internet on my computer with a Orange key that I bought), the 1980’s (back to cassettes!), and the traditional, everything made out of mud and wood. All the same, it’s not really that odd. Technologies of a million different time periods seem to blend so seamlessly here; languages too, and religion for that matter. In the course of one conversation I might hear four different languages (Jaxanke, French, Wolof and Pulaar- maybe even an English word or two). And older healing and magical traditions (ie. Genies, charms, witchcraft) are all melded into a very devout form of Islam so well that it is difficult to distinguish between the two.
I wanted to write several days ago at the end of thanksgiving. But I suppose those funky chemicals in turkey got the best of me and I was bested by sleepiness and absurd fullness. It was a great thanksgiving, though, one worthy of a blog post and songs from the West African Griots at the very least.
We did it up in with true Kedougou spirit. It is such a cool culture around here. Goals, no matter how far-fetched or absurd, are tackled with a ‘can’t nothing stop us’ attitude. ‘Want to weld together a tandem bicycle? Go to!’, ‘Have our entire region run a marathon at the beginning of hot season in Tamba? Why not?’, ‘Make a Purducken for Thanksgiving? Yes!’. And this is just what we did- a chicken stuffed inside a duck, inside a turkey, inside a pig, all wrapped in banana leaves and cooked in the ground Hawaiian style. It was a crazy, ridiculous idea. But everyone got behind it. After all, who could dream up a more epic Thanksgiving feast? And we all worked hard. We found a turkey in Tamba and bought him a place on the roof of a station-wagon coming to Kedougou. The other animals we found around Kedougou and spent many a long hour plucking and butchering. A grisly process, to be sure, but I suppose it’s good to be so close to your food. And eventually, long past nightfall on the 23rd, we put white hot rocks and stuffing inside our purducken, wrapped it all up in banana leaves, and lowered it all into a hot pit to barbeque underground for the next 18 hours.
Thanksgiving, or any holiday for that matter, away from home just isn’t right. Without my family there it was hard to believe that this was really Thanksgiving at all, and the nostalgic feel and smell of November was burned up by our hot Senegalese sun. It felt more like we were having a mock thanksgiving feast in the middle of August. But as the big day really got going I got more and more into the Thanksgiving spirit. Everybody was cooking up a storm in the kitchen- pies, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes- and we were drinking homemade honey wine. We also had done a radio show in Malinke about what thanksgiving is and what we’re thankful for. (Nse Allah tantou baawo nna dimbaaya Amerik a nin men be Senegal bee be kedeyaarin!) Sometime in the afternoon we all took a break to go swimming in the Gambia river. And there, all of us frolicking in the cool water, I felt pretty dern lucky to be doing thanksgiving in Senegal. It’s not Thanksgiving with my family, but I’m thankful all the same.
When we got back it was time to pull the purducken out of the ground. My buddy CJ and I unwrapped the banana leaves and there it was- cooked to perfection, fall off the bone deliciousness! Everybody crowded around like kids around presents at Christmas, pulling big chunks of meat off the pig and savoring them with huge grins. It was so joyful- our purducken a success! By the time we finally got to the feast we were nearly stuffed. But we piled our plates nevertheless and didn’t slow down till the apple pie, carrot cake and cheese cake were all gone. Nse Allah tantou!
