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March 10, 2005

House Warming

Last night I had a house-warming party. 'House-warming' is not a phrase that translates sensibly into Fulfulde, especially now that we are well into hot season. But the idea of inviting everyone to your new house to pronounce blessings on the new yard is entirely normal. Being in a new place is thought to be an uneasy state of being, countered only by a sufficient quantity of people coming round and saying 'Alla dammini' (May God establish). And the houseowner's part of the bargain is to provide for them a sufficient quantity of roast goat and macaroni.

The party itself was based on the parties Keith used to throw in Gorom. His article 'partying with the poor' is worth a read; it is a concept which cuts right to the heart of the gospel. Muslims and Christians, men and women, adults and children, poor and less poor, all partaking of the one goat.

The goat got a raw deal, of course. She had sat with me on the veranda in the heat of the day and we had munched dates in a companionable kind of way, enjoying the breeze of an electric fan which swung back and forth between us. I told her that I was feeling a bit stressed about the upcoming party and she blinked sympathetically as if to say that she wasn't feeling too great about it either. And then the old man Amadou Mawdo arrived and we laid the goat on her side, held her legs and slit her throat. Life is like that.

Not much to report about the party itself, except the staggeringly bad behaviour of the neighbourhood kids, which I had sort of anticipated but not prepared for. Parties here are essentially sedentary affairs - not much in common with English parties except the peanut theme. We sat on mats and drank tea and ate peanuts and then ate the meal and had more tea and more peanuts and the dates left over from the goat's lunch. And then some more people arrived, and found that the food was finished and got cross, saying 'Toy ngedu am?' ('Where's my goat-leg, then?'). Then we built a fire and there was some singing and clapping and then people started to leave, saying 'Allah dammini, Allah dammini'.

Most of the guests left around ten o'clock, but some stayed till half past midnight, listening to Fulfulde cassettes. We listened to 'Linjila e Al Qur'an', a cassette of Keith talking about what the Gospels and the Qur'an teach about Jesus - he emphasizes the common ground and it's all really nicely contextualized. After that we listened to a straight recording of the Gospel of Mark and I felt again that pleasant dizzying sensation of being able to share Staggeringly Good News with people who have never heard it. One guy in particular was really interested and asked a lot of questions - he told me this morning that he had not got to sleep until two o'clock, thinking about everything he had heard, and that when he did get to sleep he dreamed about Jesus. Perhaps God is at work in his life.

Or perhaps it was just something he ate.

Posted by sahelsteve at March 10, 2005 09:19 PM