Korite officially marks the end of Ramadan. There was some disagreement as to when the end was supposed to come, because apparently Korite should only come with the new moon. I remember Wednesday night looking up at the sky to see if the moon was there or not – I couldn’t find it. But apparently some religious leaders got together to discuss the status of the moon, and by midnight, Senegal was informed that Thursday was in fact Korite.
Anyway, we got up pretty early. My mom and sister went over to the Big Family’s house to start making “ngalax” a sweet, creamy substance made of peanuts. Myself and my friend Ewan joined them a few hours later, just in time to chug the ngalax down.
Most of the day was spent eating or waiting to eat. Ewan’s Wolof is amazing (by far the best in our program) so of course he wowed my whole family. Now their expectations of my Wolof are SO much higher I am almost cursing Ewan.
After lunch, Ewan and I decided to put on our boubous. It is a custom here that every one gets a boubou specially made for this holiday. Sometimes they spend $50 on a boubou, but I spent about $10. The women usually don’t get dressed until around 6-7pm at night, which I find ridiculous (why would you get a boubou made only to put in on once the sun is down, and to wear it for only 3-4 hours). So, Ewan and I boycotted this tradition and had them on by 3pm. It took us about 5 minutes to get ready, which greatly contrasts with the 2 HOURS it took the women to get ready! Man, they go all out. Heavy heavy makeup, nails done, new hairdos… The works. Oh, Senegal.
Mostly, Korite is a holiday in which people get really worked up for, and blow tons of money on, and it really isn’t all that exciting. But, then again, that’s the way a lot of social events are here in Senegal – more time put in the preparation, and when the actual festivity comes around, it involves nothing more than sitting, speaking Wolof, and eating a lot of food.