God Bless you la la la
RFI musique coolness had impregnated each corner of our living room when BH looked over his laptop screen and prompted me to dress up immediately. "Wear a boubou", he said. I jumped into one of my Ivorian dresses and off we headed to Boubacar's house to celebrate the fact that Abraham sacrified an animal instead of his own son. When we arrived, la Directrice Generale, a.k.a. Boubacar's wife, was in the kitchen surrounded by pots, pans and meat, lots of fresh meat. Tabaski is not for animal huggers or those who faint when they see blood. I growed up watching bullfighting with my grandparents and I felt a sort of blood connection to Boubacar's family as soon as we entered his place. The smell of burning animal skin and the amount of kids running around the sacrifice reminded me of la matanza (literally, 'the killing') of the pork. My family would do it every single year around Easter. I remember being terrified by a 200kg pig leaving ...