Bleating Heart Liberal

St. Louis, Senegal. At the mouth of the Senegal river lies the remains of a once glorious colonial city. Lorded over by the French, who laid claim to much of West Africa in the late 1800s, St. Louis was once the capitol of the imperial colony. It has a rich and illustrious past - meaning that the French subjugated the locals, destroyed their culture, and established a trade in slaves and gum. Fortunately it's difficult to chew gum and trade slaves at the same time, and the empire eventually collapsed. France tried its damnedest to hold on, granting the natives citizenship and a tempting array of stinky cheeses, but to no avail; the French reign over West Africa was broken. Prior to the fall the capitol shifted to Dakar, several hundred kilometers to the south, and the once great city has since fallen into disrepair. Time has not has not been kind to this aging debutante with its decrepit colonial architecture, a mere shadow of its former self.


Still, it has it's charm. The locals are some of the mostly genuinely friendly people I have had the pleasure to meet, proving once and for all that not everyone who speaks French is an asshole. And forget Milan, forget Stockholm, forget Paris; St. Louis has the most stunning women I have ever laid eyes on. Tall and curvaceous, with flawless onyx skin, they walk through the streets like runway models. Toubabs like myself, distracted by the show, frequently walk directly into telephone poles and other decidedly stationary objects. What can I say, love hurts. Finally, with some dumb luck, our arrival in St. Louis coincided with the start of a thrilling festival known as Tabaski.



We had been seeing them all week, the rams and the goats. They were tied up on roof racks, shuttled in trunks, motored on laps. In fact, our ride to St. Louis transported several live rams. All were stuffed into potato sacks, in a kneeling position, with only their heads exposed; two were strapped under the cargo net on the roof with the luggage and the third was literally dangled from the side of the car with a rope. Call me a bleeding-heart liberal, but I'm not sure this a particularly humane practice - a goat would provide little personal protection in the event of a side impact crash. If they really cared about their passengers they could at least install something safer, like a passenger-side rhinoceros or something. The rams were all blissfully unaware of their date with destiny; their fate, the Festival of Tabaski. Biblical in origin, this festival celebrates the gesture of Abraham, to whom God had ordered to sacrifice his son. In the olden days God did this sort of thing all the time, it being better than watching reruns of Survivor- Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham, knowing that his son was doomed to a life of a boredom and inequity anyways, immediately takes God up on the offer - which totally ruins the joke. So God has to put on the brakes and provide a ram to sacrifice instead. In effect, thousands of rams and goats are slaughtered every January 11th to commemorate the Almighty's surprisingly underdeveloped sense of humor.



The air-raid siren sounded at exactly 10am. The long, wailing cry a harbinger of doom. The posse walked rapidly through the streets,butcher knives in hand. Blood dripped from their palms, stained their clothes, splashed on the ground. It pooled on the pavement, forming crimson lakes, congealing in the sun. The smell of death hung thickly in the air. They were an tirelessly efficient death squad. One man dropped the victim to the ground, a second pinned his legs, while a third twisted his neck viciously and went to work with the knife. It took about ten seconds for the dull blade to cut through the thick, rubbery windpipe. A horrible gurgling noise emitted from his throat as he bucked and kicked under the weight of his assailants. The posse moved on to its next victim, each helplessly tied up to a post outside each and every door. The Silence of the Rams had begun.



The people were exuberant. The goats were skinned, gutted, and dismembered with extraordinary skill. It was a lot like dismantling an engine, though I would think twice before trying to put a dismembered goat back together. Walking through the streets, past open doors, one could spy the most gruesome of scenes. Organs spilled on the ground, carcasses hung from hooks, pelts littered the pavement. It was worse than a Republican fundraising event. Truly, it was fascinating. Many people invited us to join in this joyous event and we took them up on it. We got to watch the whole thing. No part goes to waste. If anyone wanted to know, it takes about 45 minutes to remove the skin off the head of a goat with a razor blade. It took a bit longer to split the skull with the dull axe they used. We all sat in a large circle on the floor, where large trays full of smoking, hot ram meat were served to us. We gorged ourselves silly on the freshest meat one could possibly have. Whole Foods ain't got nothing on this. Bon Tabaski.