Tales from New Year's

New Year's Eve, or the "trent et un", is the fête du poulet in Mali. Our friends have been talking about how excited they were to eat lots (and lots) of chicken, which oddly enough is an expensive type of meat here. As the day approached, Robert's cousin sold us some chicken. And by "some chicken", I mean precisely eight fully feathered birds. At this point, we had eight confirmed RSVPs to the new year's festivities -- the reasoning being each person should get their own chicken. Of course, transport of livestock can only be done via motorcycle (I think there's a law or something). This picture is of Job and some recently conscripted child from the neighborhood, transporting the chickens from Robert's courtyard to meet their doom.

As the only members of the grin (tea circle) with our own pad (and despite having very conservative Muslim neighbors downstairs), we were enlisted to host this new year's bash. We've also been hosting Biton (who lived with Baïssou the semester before Sarah was here; his real name is Brian) and his girlfriend Alex as they've come to visit. Collectively, we were instructed to make a "traditional American dish" to add to the evening's gastronomical excess. And of course, it doesn't get more American than good ole quesadillas. Here we are trying to prepare them on a gas burner that wouldn't turn below a scorch (hence why I'm holding the pan up so high), and eating the delicious if somewhat non-traditional result. The closest we could come to tortillas were "pan arabe" (translation: arab bread, aka pita).

As I mentioned in an earlier post, people here have been lighting off fireworks (aka gunpowder explosives that sound like gunshots) since the beginning of December. However, on the day of the fête, Baïssou came over with a firework cleverly named "Candle with Report" and excitedly told us how you "just hold it like so and it shoots shit into the air!" (see picture below). Sarah, being the only responsible adult in a room full of teenagers eager to play with fire and explosives, read more carefully to find "DO NOT HOLD UNDER PENALTY OF DEATH" printed all over the thing. Needless to say, you can guess what we did :P

The actual strike of midnight we spent up on the roof, in part to fire our magnificent Candle (with Report!) but also to watch the fireworks coming from every rooftop in Bamako and wish each other happy new years. It was a very pretty sight which unfortunately could not be captured on camera. We did, however, get a nice group shot of everyone.

By this time, it was nearing a quarter to one in the morning and we still hadn't eaten (we were too busy having an absolut ball!). Here, the party supposedly begins at the strike of midnight. There was, of course, plenty of dancing. In an unfortunate turn of events, a four second video clip of said dancing has survived the mass censorship of any post-party slide deck. It is embedded below for four seconds of amusement (and hopefully not four seconds of my horror played across 17.1M views).

When the food was finally pulled out and put on the table, it was close to 2am. There was indeed a gratuitous amount of chicken, however a few people had brought +1's and we actually ended up eating almost all of it. The cooking was done by Fatim, who sometimes has tea with us. Apparently Baïssou had (incorrectly) assumed until the last minute that Sarah would do all of the cooking, having two X chromosomes and all. Luckily we clarified that before it was too late, as Fatim did a wonderful job with the food. Despite being cold from sitting out so long, the chicken and plantains and french fries were quite flavorful and loaded with protein and MSG. #win.

Dancing continued until the early morning, occasionally punctuated by the very sincere, heart-to-heart discussions that often occur during such revelry. It appears everyone had a fantastic time, and Baïssou even danced which apparently has not happened in several years (in fact, he is featured in the video above!). The next morning, we cooked some more quesadillas. This led to the astute observation that New Year's in Bamako tastes like college.

And, because any day in Mali is not complete without seeing something bizarre, regard the stalker photo I took of our Nigerian neighbors from our balcony.

Yes, that is a flaming goat. It's called Chevre Brulé, a french delicacy from the Loire River Valley that is often eaten for breakfast. Actually, we have no friggin' clue what was going on. I went out onto our porch, and saw this poor goat strung up by its neck from a pole. A few minutes later, Sarah calls me out again because the goat is on fire. As Sarah's host dad used to say, never trust anglophone west africans; they will burn your goat.