Corité + Île aux Oiseaux

Wednesday October 1 marked the long awaited date of the end of Ramadan: la Corite. A grand Muselman holiday, people get a new boubou made, make good food, dance and visit their family and friends. It lasts the entire day from morning to night. My family was quite vague in explaining anything further to me. I had been invited to their festivities as well as to Claudine’s family’s celebration. In the end, Astou, my mom, gave me a hard time about leaving her party to go to another’s. Had I known it would offend her, I would not have accepted Claudine’s mom’s invite… The plan was for us three girls was to start the day at Claudine’s and then head to my family’s.

(Image left: the three of us dressed up in our boubous and melting. As you can tell by our facial expressions, having the time of our lives...)

The party, my family explained, started with cleaning up, then eating breakfast, then washing, then getting dressed in new boubou, cooking big meal and eating. In the end, it was just like any other day… Certainly disappointing according to my definition of a party!

We wore our ridiculous-looking boubous and brought pop bottles as gifts. Since they are Muselman, they don’t drink alcohol so bringing a bottle of pop is like bring a bottle of wine… With all the hype, I was expecting a fun-filled day of eat and dance. In the end, it was an extremely boring day. My impression of Muselman parties is that you sit and wait for the time to pass and for food to be ready in the heat of the day dressed in uncomfortably hot and ridiculous-looking clothing. Indeed, apart from Corite, Astou had shown me videos of her wedding and El Hadj’s first birthday (both of which she hired someone to make a video of the event). The guests just sit and yeah…they just sit there. Most of them don’t even talk and certainly don’t look entertained or happy. Weird.

(Image right: we danced for about five minutes. from left to right: Claudine, myself, Tabaski (Clau's sister) and Cumba (Clau's mom))

Returning to my celebration of Corite: by the time we ate the meal at Claudine’s I had waited for 2.5 hours and was famished. I left in a hurry to try and make it back to my family’s main meal on time. It wasn’t too classy leaving one relaxed milieu to go to another, but I think I saved face with my family. I ate a second time in the same hour. The day went on and on …uncomfortably hot and boring. I didn’t see much dancing although there was more music in the air than usual. My best moment of the day: taking off my sweat-drenched boubou.

(Image left: Claudine, myself, Astou, Marie-Claude dressed up in our boubous for Corité and El Hadj)

Tabaski is the next big Muselman holiday. Its in mid-November and they celebrate by killing lambs and eating them. I hate lamb meat and I’m not looking forward to more partying “Muselman style”… Perhaps I could take advantage of the time off work and visit the Gambia instead? To be determined….

Corite is a national holiday. Whether the following day is an official holiday or not is not clear to me. But everyone had told me that going to work would be useless since patients would not come and the department would probably be locked up. Apparently, people tend to take the day after Corite to relax after the grand festivities… Go figure!

In anticipation of the fact that I would not need a day off to relax after a holiday, I organised a visit to an island near Ziguinchor called Bird Island. As the name indicates, it is an estuary for birds. I had heard that the bird season was ending soon so I was happy to fit it in my schedule. Our guide’s name was Ousmane and he was on time, professional and kind.

(Image right: view of Djilapao island from the pirogue)

The excursion cost 15 000 FCA (about 37$) each and we were four: us three girls plus Marie-Claude’s roommate, Sabine (a retired teacher from Germany). There were apparently good chances of seeing dolphins in the fleuve Casamance and the excursion included visiting the island of Djilapao.

(Image left: taken on the island; the kids were following us around. Many baobab trees, very beautiful)

The ride in the pirogue boat was very enjoyable and I loved being able to see Ziguinchor from the water. We visited Djilapao Island first. It is inhabited by about 120 people. During our tour of it, the kids from the village followed us closely. They have no other natural sources of water apart from the rain. They grow rice and mostly fish. They also take care of traveller’s sailboats who need to store their boat for a prolonged period of time (because it is less costly than leaving it at a marina in Zig and more secure). The children stay on the island during summer vacation but return to town (Zig or another city who’s name I forget) for education. We had lunch on the island: more shrimp than us four shrimp fanatics could handle! Delicious!

After lunch, we got a tour of a home in the village which was inhabited by a recently deceased artist who had intricately decorated it’s interior.

(Image right: art inside the home: people playing the djembes = tam tams)

The ceramic statue-like art was integrated within the walls of the home and really made it alive! It was interesting to hear the explanation for

the art beings. The guide explained to us that they didn’t know the story behind many of the pieces since the artist died prematurely.

(Image left: our pirogue with captain, Ousmane)

(Image right: bir

d on the island; many like these...quite big and prehistoric looking)

We headed to Bird Island which, in reality, is not an island but a grouping of mangroves. Curiously, it is like an island because there are tons and tons of birds on it – and not on the other nearby mangroves. Ousmane explained that the birds go there because it is protected from storms and predators.I wish I knew more about birds, because I’m sure a bird watcher would have gone ballistic with this place. There were many prehistoric looking

birds which I was able to get a very close look at. Additionally, I had the privilege of seeing newborn chicks in their nests.

I was disappointed that I didn’t see any dolphins: apparently they usually swim by the boat. I did thoroughly

enjoy the excursion though. Afterwards, since we were by the fleuve where all the nice hotels are, we opted for ice cream (which you

can only get in themost exclusive of places). What a treat! It hit the spot!

Image left: me in the pirogue)

That evening, in the spirit of the end of Corite and in an act of unusual charity, I decidedto go to the hospital and give bananas to patients. On my way there, I ran into a “friend” -lifeguard at the pool called Daouda –who kindly helped me negotiate the bananas and carried them as I distributed one to each patient. I was pleased to see that all the patients were in the company of members of their family or friends. Not one was alone! The patients seemed to appreciate my gift.

I went in to work on Friday and had a really interesting day which included my first community visit (returning a patient to work). After work, I relaxed: read my book, went on internet and spoke with my folks on Skype. On my way back home, I ran into Daouda and had a beer with him. My Guinness was exquisite! I was late for supper with my family since I was sure we’d eat at 10pm. But since Ramadan is over, they had switched to eating at 8pm.