I’ve been having a pretty low self-esteem week, so when I was scrounging around looking for a topic to write about, I initially gravitated towards some long, soul-searching blog post about my identity and how there are things about myself that I don’t like and will never be able to escape from no matter how far from home I go…
And then I decided to write a blog post about goats.
Compared to most modern cities, there’s a lot of livestock in Dakar. But goats occupy a place in Dakarois society that cows, ducks, and chickens just can’t compete with. For one thing, people love goats here. I know several families that keep goats as pets – not domesticated livestock, but honest-to-goodness pets with the run of the house – and one of my classmates’ host family honors their students by naming each new baby goat after the American student staying in their house at the time. Because of the ceremonial function that goats serve in Senegalese mainstream Muslim society, Muslim families are more likely to own goats than their Christian counterparts, but even my Christian host family has a deep-seated affection for the animals. Walking with my five-year-old host brother one day down the road, he pointed a herd out to me and told me gravely, “Those are goats. They say ‘baaaa!’” I thanked him for this vital information as we continued our stroll. And one of the critiques that my very Christian host mama gives of the Muslim community here is that they kill goats, which are nice animals.
While lots of families keep their goats in the house or in sheds on the roof (there’s a goat shed on the roof of my building – I can see it out of the kitchen window. I occasionally have a staring contest with the bull ram over breakfast), most goats are let out of the house in the morning, wander around Dakar for most of the day, and then mosey on back home to sleep when it starts getting dark.
Goats are not just an integral part of the infrastructure of Dakar, they have also wormed their way into Dakar main-stream media. I can’t tell you how many billboards advertising the “Grand Jeu Tabaski” I pass on the way to school every day, announcing that there are 100 goats to be won by lucky families across Dakar. Furthermore, one of my favorite forms of entertainment has become the reality TV show that consists of finding goats that look particularly meaty, weighing them, and awarding prizes to the owners of the largest.
From an American point of view, this fixation on goats might seem quaint, or backwards, or charming in an under-developed, third-world kind of way. But it’s not any of these things. I think that reality TV shows about goats and modern auto-routes lined with billboards advertising goats to be won is a perfect example of how Senegal is managing to reconcile modernity with her own cultural identity – to develop without falling victim to the cultural Westernization that has so many countries up in arms. To be fair, Senegal isn’t totally free of Westernization: more and more women are choosing Western clothes over traditional outfits, most families subscribe to at least one Western TV channel, and even African TV channels play Western movies, TV shows, and music videos. But I don’t know a single Senegalese woman who has only Western clothes in her wardrobe, almost every family I know eats around a communal bowl, and my Senegalese peers are just as likely to be dancing to Senegalese as American hip hop. That’s got to be worth something.
Right now the number of goats in Dakar is at its annual high-point, on account of Tabaski, which is this coming Monday. Tabaski celebrates the day that God gave Abraham a ram to sacrifice in place of his son, Ishmael (or Isaac, in the Christian tradition), and it’s traditional for every Muslim family to slaughter a goat in honor of God’s beneficence. While the number of goats has sky-rocketed, so has the number of goat guards, and right before Tabaski you see far fewer goats wandering around the city than is normal. This is because, unfortunately, right before Tabaski the rate of petty theft is at its all-time high, as people begin resorting to illegal measures to provide their family with a Tabaski goat. This not only means that foreigners like me have to be especially careful of pockets and purses, but goat thefts also become increasingly common as the holiday approaches.
After the holiday, of course, there are significantly fewer goats in Dakar, and everyone goes back to their pre-Tabaski goat tending habits. I’m looking forward to going back to passing goats who are out and about on my way to school.
