holidays coast-to-coast

Baal ma, baal naa la. Yalla nu Yalla boole baal.
(Forgive me, I forgive you. May God forgive us all.)

These are the traditional words spoken on Tabaski, the Senegalese name for the Muslim celebration of Eid-Al-Adha, which commemorates the story of God asking Abraham to sacrifice his only son Ishmael to show his commitment to his faith, and at the last second sparing the boy by replacing him with a ram. It is considered the largest holiday in this mostly Muslim culture, and this year the day fell two days after one of the biggest holidays in American culture, Thanksgiving. Because of the proximity of the two days and my prior plans to participate in the U.S. Ambassador’s Thanksgiving dinner in Dakar, my host mother forgave me for staying in the capital to celebrate Tabaski with good friends instead of with my family at site, agreeing that traffic would probably be terrible if I tried to travel back to site right before Tabaski.

It was a strange inversion of emotion, another year of celebrating an American holiday in the midst of a foreign culture, and then participating as an American in a foreign holiday. I am thankful that I had the opportunity to spend Thanksgiving with other American friends, bake a few pies in a borrowed apartment, and sit around a table with others who share my tradition.

I ended up missing my family and friends more on Tabaski, however, than I did on Thanksgiving, a fact that may be hard to comprehend for some of you who will say, “but we don’t celebrate Tabaski.” It’s true that most of us in America don’t celebrate the equivalent of Tabaski, but because it is the biggest holiday here, (and here is where I am now, even though here is not where I’m from) even though I was with friends it felt like I should also have been with my family that day. The feelings of distance and separation from my loves ones that struck me on Thanksgiving were multiplied on Tabaski as I watched my African friends celebrate their blessings, forgive each other for their wrongs, and embrace the importance of being with family.

I’ve posted to my photo site pictures of Thanksgiving preparations and elegant Tabaski outfits, American friends and Senegalese.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/offtoseetheworld/

I’ll leave you today with this quote from a book I picked up over the holiday in our Peace Corps regional house library. After I read this I looked back to the first pages to check the publication date and was surprised to find “1958,” because I find these words just as relevant today as when they were first written half a century ago.

“The community today can be no single tradition; it is the planet. Daily the world grows smaller, leaving understanding the only bridge on which peace can find its home. But the annihilation of distance has caught us unprepared. Who today stands ready to accept the solemn equality of nations? Who does not have to fight an unconscious tendency to equate foreign with inferior? We live in a great century, but if it is to rise to its full opportunity, the scientific achievements of its first half must be matched by comparable achievements in human relations in its second. Those who listen in the present world work for peace, a peace built not upon ecclesiastical or political empire, but upon understanding and the mutual involvement in the lives of others that this brings. For understanding, at least in realms as inherently noble as the great faiths of mankind, brings respect, and respect prepares the way for a higher power, love - the only power that can quench the flames of fear, suspicion, and prejudice, and provide the means by which the peoples of this great earth can become one to one another.”

- Huston Smith, “The Religions of Man”