Sala celebration

Jordan here: Last weekend was the Sala (not sure about the spelling) celebration. It apparently happens 70 days after the end of Ramadan, the month-long Islamic fast during August. After learning more about it, I see similarities that remind me that it’s a small world after all. I thought, being a Christian, that this would be a completely foreign concept and there would be so many customs and traditions to learn about. Except, throughout the day it felt like a combo of Easter and Halloween. First of all, what I heard from the Ghanaians from the history of the celebration was that it was to remember when Mohammed (or Abraham) was asked by God to demonstrate his faith to Him by sacrificing the life of his only son. When he was about to follow through with God’s challenge, God commanded him to stop and to sacrifice an animal instead since he had proven his faith. I’m nearly positive that the exact same story was told to me in Sunday School. The morning of Sunday comes and we’re told everyone puts on their nicest clothes and all walk together to a sacred worship place. Prayers were about the same as the other prayers that happen at that time in the day. And they only lasted about 20 minutes. For all the pomp and circumstance, I thought there’d be more. I’ve heard longer Lutheran sermons J Sarah and I didn’t participate but we observed and I was allowed to take a bunch of pictures. They even put a traditional head wrap for Sarah for the occasion so the pictures turned out great. Then everyone took pictures with family in their nice clothes (like every holiday or family get-together I’ve ever been a part of my entire life) walked back home to change out of the stuffy clothes, and made a big morning meal (Easter breakfast-ish). We took the chance to go and greet a ton of people and every Ghanaian is obsessed with pictures and especially being in them. It’s good my Mom bought me an 8 gigabyte memory card or else I may not have enough space. Then we came home finally and take a quick afternoon nap and went to watch the women’s dance group dance the traditional dances. Of course they wanted Sarah to join since she’s a woman so I got lots of good pictures and video. And now that we had our Sisaali names, everyone wanted to hear about it and smiles were plenty around the village. Then we made our way over to a compound that belongs to some of our best friends and is next door to Osman and his family. She made us rice and stew and we of course stuffed ourselves and played with Bahadjia, Osman’s hilarious daughter. Throughout the day, the tradition is to approach others in the community and ask “barakada sala” which translates please give me something small for sala. It sounds very much like “trick or treat”. So we carried around a bag of jelly beans and would give one to the small children that asked respectfully. Sometimes older kids and adults would ask for things and usually they want money. If you have nothing to give, you say “a la guro”. Later that night, the youth danced to hip hop music until late at night and many kids asked us to come but we were exhausted. So we went home and slept. Apparently, its also like Christmas and its not just a single day, but more like a season. So dancing continued for a few more days and more “barakada sala’s”. Overall it was nice to be a part of the first big community-wide festival and learn more about our place.