Mékhé

Coming up

• December: the month everyone comes home

  From December 1 to December 31, 2026

  In December, Senegal changes composition. Flights from Paris, Milan, Madrid, New York and Casablanca land full, families drive to AIBD at three in the morning to collect their own, and houses fill with suitcases of presents. It is the month of weddings — more are held in December than in six ordinary months — of naming ceremonies postponed until the uncle from Milan is back, of housewarmings for homes built at a distance over five years, and of reunions planned since the summer.

  In practice that means three things. Airfares double from mid-December. Rooms are booked early, especially in Dakar, Saly and each family's home town. And the roads are heavy at weekends, particularly Dakar-Touba, Dakar-Kaolack and Dakar-Saint-Louis.

  It is also the best time of year to be here. The weather is dry, it is twenty-five degrees, the sea is still warm, and the drumming in the courtyards never stops before two in the morning. If you are housing someone coming home — a mother, a brother, cousins passing through — this is the month when nobody forgets to count the beds.

• Tabaski: the sheep, the family, the road

  From May 15 to May 18, 2027

  Tabaski — Eid al-Adha — falls on the 10th of Dhu al-Hijjah, which means around Sunday 16 May 2027. In Senegal the exact date is announced a few days ahead by the religious authorities, and the country sometimes celebrates over two days: it has happened again in recent years, and nobody treats it as a crisis.

  It is the most important feast of the year. Every head of household who can afford it buys a sheep — prices have been climbing for weeks, sale yards appear on the waste ground of Dakar, and the national conversation is the going rate for a ram. The day before, tailors deliver in a panic the outfits sewn at the HLM market. On the day itself: open-air morning prayer, the sacrifice, the butchering, grilling all day, visits to neighbours and elders, and the formula repeated from house to house to ask forgiveness.

  For a traveller: transport is besieged three days ahead — everyone goes back to the village — banks and public offices close, so do many restaurants, and taxis are scarce on the morning of the feast. On the other hand, if you are staying with someone, you will eat as never before.

Neighborhoods in Mékhé

Stays in Mékhé