One week after a baby is born in Iriba, the parents have a naming party. In Arabic, it’s called a “samaay”, deriving it’s title from the Arabic word “usum”, meaning name.  Most parents will pick out their baby’s name almost immediately, but will keep it between themselves until the day of the samaay.  So, we decided to do the same.  When our neighbors asked what her name was, we told them they needed to come to the samaay to find out her name.

The preparations for the samaay started with the purchase of the food.  A couple days before the event, Evangeline went to the market with Sonja’s friend Amuna, and they purchased the vegetables, rice, couscous, and other goods, while I went with a friend to purchase two sheep for meat.

Of course, it’s difficult for our kids to just leave the sheep in peace to live out their final day of life.  Instead, tweedle-dee and the other one figure that they need to work on their riding skills:

Even the morning of their last walk, the Scooter was there consoling them:

…or maybe he just wanted a front row seat to the slaughter show:

After the sheep is slaughtered and bled out, it’s hung from somewhere and it’s outer skin is cut away.  Then all the different meats are harvested.  All the kids were in line to watch this part of the show:

Then the ladies clean the meat, especially the innards like the intestines, liver, and other things you probably never imagined eating:

All the time that this meat prep has been going on, a whole host of other ladies are preparing the other foods that will be served at the samaay.  The kitchen was a veritable traffic jam with all the different cooks.

As the afternoon meal time draws near and the food prep is finishing, the food is then loaded onto serving trays like this:

As you can see, there was a wonderful spread of mutton and potato stew, salad, hamburger and potato crisps, rice, bread, custard and couscous, and smack dab in the middle…the innards!  These trays are then delivered to all the guests.  Here’s my friends Persevo and Justin delivering a couple across the street where the men all gathered:

Then people gather around the trays, about 5-8 people per tray, and dig in with their hands, community style wherever they can find space:

All these people came to celebrate Sahara’s birth and the bestowing of her name.  It was a special day that we enjoyed.