Tabaski take two, weddings, and solar cooking

Last Tuesday was my second village Tabaski experience, and this year it was more fun, since I understood what was actually going on for the most part. The first day, I dressed up, covered my head, and went out with everyone to a shady spot behind an ancient tree. There, for probably an hour everyone prayed, led by three village notables who stood up front, their heads and shoulders covered by a cloth. I sat in theback with the women, as I usually do, and enjoyed the atmosphere of serenity. Once the prayres were over, we greeted each other with a "baalma ac", responded by saying "baalma ala", which means roughly, I think, an apology for anything one might have done wrong the previous year, and acceptance of the apology. Then a round of blessings for health and happiness. I also got plenty of blessings for my work, for going home safely to the USA, for having a husband and male children. Amen! Though I was sure to specify that I would like girl children first, anyway.
After prayers they killed the rams, which I managed to peek at this year. It is not so gruesome as one might think, but the blood does spurt everywhere, and the most disturbing part of it is probably the sheep's death twitches, though his throat is already cut. Anyway, meat is not for the squeamish. To butcher the rams they hang them up by the hind legs from a tree, peel off the skin (which they just discard; I would htink it could be used for something) and remove the entrails (which they do eat, after a thorough cleaning), then chop up the muscle meat. It's really interesting from an anatomical point of view, to see hoe the animal is put together in all it's layers. And of course, once the butchering is done, the cooking begins. This year, once again, I was put in charge of onions. I will probably smell like onions for weeks. But, they're supposed to repel flies, so I don't mind. The menu: day one - sauce with meat, onions, fried potatoes, macaroni, and lots of oil, sopped up with chunks of bread; day two - "cous cous", which is actually tiny vermicelli noodles, topped with meat and onion sauce; day three - mafe farine (a kind of tomato sauce thickened with flour) and meat, over white rice. Pretty tasty stuff.
One might think everyone was tired of meat after three days of eating sheep, but not so! The past several days have been full of celebrations, practically one a day. There was a good harvest this year, which means people have some money, and that has resulted in a lot of "noos" (fun times) in the village because of weddings. I've been to three in as many days! The young brides' husbands sent them beautiful new clothes of crinkly, shiny bazane, heavy with embroidery. They also sent mounds of food: onions, potatos, rice, vermicelli, chickens, and goats. And when there's meat and fancy clothes, there's a party! I've been in charge of the onions, as usual. But the result is that there have been a lot of oily, delicious meals lately in celebration of these weddings. None of the girls have left the village for their husbands' homes yet; this is one of the many steps that comes before that, involving giving of gifts, clothes, food, and other amenities. During these celebrations I have no idea what the men do. I never see them. But the women cook, and laugh, and dance, and talk long into the night.
Another thing I'm experimenting with is solar cooking. I brought a simple solar cooker with me, thanks to a neighbor, and last eyar kept it in my hut, telling people they could borrow it to try whenever they liked. But I noticed that once family asked more than all the rest, so after the rainy season I decided to outright give it to them. Then, because people are leary of risking their expensive food in a solar oven that, in their view, may or may not work, I decided to buy ingrediants every week or two to try cooking Senegalese food in a solar cooker. So far, with this family, we've tried mafe, white rice, and tchou. They were extremely dubious at first, but willing to try (it was my money, after all) and the results have been fairly good. Cooking rice without steaming it first was a big concern, but it turned out well, only we didn't put in enough water so it was a little crunchy. Both sauces, the mafe and the tchou, cooked perfectly in the heat of the sun, but they weren't ready in time for lunch, so only the children got to enjoy them with their late-afternoon half-meal before dinner. Still, everyone's interested in the solar cooker, and hopefully once they've seen it in action, they'll try it for their own cooking as well as mine.