Today's the big day! Eid Mubarak Said, my good readers! Today, Muslims all over the world are celebrating Eid al-Adha. This day commemorates the occasion when God told Abraham to sacrifice his son Issac. For all of you who don't know the story, God told Abraham to take his heir, Issac, up to the top of a mountain and offer him as a sacrifice. Abraham, being the good patriarch that he was, agreed, dragged Issac and a ton of wood up the mountain, and right as he was standing above Issac, wicked huge knife at the ready, God realized that Abraham was actually going to go through with it. God then sent an angel down just in the nick of time to prevent Issac from becoming a sacred barbecue, and Abraham sacrifices a ram instead to express his heartfelt thanks. The good Moroccan Muslim way to honor this occasion is to sacrifice your own sheep or ram.
My family's Eid preparations began on Thursday when I woke up to my dad yelling the Darija equivalent of "Watch out!". I peeped out my window into my apartment's courtyard, and was greeted by the sight of a ram. This animal was freaking huge and had a pretty massive set of horns, at least in my inexperienced, city girl opinion. My dad tied the ram up by its horns to a little stake in the center of our courtyard. By the end of the morning, the ram was surrounded by a large pile of hay and nicely situated under an umbrella to protect it from the sun and rain. Throughout the day everyone in my immediate and extended family kept drifting in and out of the courtyard to look at, and make baaaaaaing noises to the ram. My little cousin Khalid was by far the cutest viewer. He kept dashing around the house on his hand and knees chattering away and making sheep noises. My brother Aymen yelled and gave the poor ram a bit of a fright, which my dad apparently thought put the beast off it's food. For the rest of the evening, every time my dad passed the ram he would look at it for a minute, point at they hay, and say "Kul!" which is exactly what my family says to me when they want me to eat more.
So, living with a ram outside my window for three days taught me a good deal about these fuzzy creatures. First of all, they smell bad. Not at first, really, but after two days of eating hay and digesting said hay, and well the hay really does have to go somewhere else eventually, the sheep starts to smell pretty ripe. So did my bedroom. I suppose it could have been worse. The sheep could have been living inside a closet, like the one my friend Alyssa's family got. I also learned that sheep can be quite loud. You know that cute little Mary Bo Peep baaaaa, that you think of when you hear sheep? Such not the case in real life. Our ram roared...at three in the morning. In reality, it wasn't that bad as long as I slept with earplugs. The biggest inconvenience was that neither Evelyn nor I could help laughing whenever the thing made noise.
For two days our ram just hung out on the patio, under it's umbrella, being baaaaed at by the likes of my father, my sister Sarah, my cousin Khalid, and I. Then, this morning, I awoke to the special Eid morning prayer being called from all of the neighborhood mosques, and a very loud sheep. Maybe he knew that his hours were numbered and just wanted to give life one last bellow, maybe he didn't like the call to prayer, maybe he was hungry. Either way it was quite the sound. My family all ate breakfast together, and Evelyn patted the sheep one last time. Then, while I was getting dressed, two guys in blood spattered clothing showed up at the house. My dad led the to the back patio, and they pulled out a rather impressive array of sharp, shiny knives. Evelyn and I rushed to my window, which overlooks the courtyard and pulled out the cameras. Then the slaughter began.
*Warning- What follows below is not for the particularly squeamish or faint of heart, as it compromises a true account of the killing, skinning, and dismembering of a sheep.*
Step One: Guys flip sheep over, ties feet together, and approach with huge knife. Moroccan host mother runs up and shoves some salt in the sheep's mouth. Not entirely sure of the significance of said act, but will ask my Moroccan Culture professor on Tuesday.
Step Two: Guys take aforementioned knife and slits (by this I mean hacks at) sheep's throat. Sheep makes surprisingly little noise, but spews an impressive amount of blood.
Step Three: Sheep's feet are untied and dead (or almost dead) animal flops around for a while. Evelyn and I go nuts with the cameras.
Step Four: Sheep is decapitated. Head ends up rather close to my feet.
Step Five: Guy puts a slit in (now headless) sheep's leg and uses that slit to (no joke) blow up the sheep. Apparently this helps with skinning. Evelyn remarks that she will never kiss a man of that profession.
Step Six: Guy breaks sheep's leg and uses tendon to tie sheep to a rope and hang carcass off of a ladder.
Step Seven: Skinning. Involves knives and treating sheep as a sort of macabre punching bag. Also much more photo taking.
Step Eight: Slice sheep open and pull out the insides. Highlights include more blood, intestines, and lots of organs going into different bowls.
Step Nine: Mom and sisters separate, clean, and chop up sheep's organs. Sheep is still dangling from ladder by its leg. Dad waters sheep carcass with a yellow watering pail. Ranks as one of the strangest things I've seen in this life.
Step 10: Clean up. Dad and sisters clean up remaining blood, intestine goop, and sheep bits from patio. Sarah and I walk sheep's head down the street to men who are roasting them. (Sheep's head is later given back to us...blackened and hornless. Was told this will be cooked in couscous sometime in near future.)
So, there you have it. Ritual slaughter of a sheep in ten easy steps! Let's try it at home next year, yeah?
The remainder of the day so far has mostly been taken up by cooking and eating. After all of the organs were chopped and sorted, by mom stuck the lungs, heart, and some other bits I really can't identity into a giant pot. This mixture has been simmering for the past five hours and I think it's going to be dinner. I assisted my mom in making the Moroccan version of chestnuts wrapped in bacon. By this I mean we wrapped sheep's liver in fat and roasted it over some charcoal. The resulting smoke flooded the apartment, and I was once again reminded of the differences between Morocco and America when there was a noticeable absence of smoke detector induced screeching. Said meat skewers actually didn't taste half bad, and my family ate such a huge lunch that I think I can make it to our 9 PM dinner without a snack!
Today was a good bonding day with the host fam, even though communication was possibly at an all time low. My Eid vocabulary extended to the words "sheep" and "dead". I'm afraid my Arabic just isn't up to questions like, "Dad, why are you roasting that heart over an open flame", "Sarah what is that disgusting goop you're squeezing out of that white gunk", and "Mom, when are we going to chop up the rest of the carcass still dangling in the middle of the patio." Luckily, my family was just happy to ask me repeatedly if I was enjoying myself, and I was more that happy to give an exuberantly positive response. I guess holidays really do have a way of bringing a family together, even if they involve death, gore, and intestines.
To sum up. Eid = best cultural experience I've had to date. I will be happy to show pictures to anyone who doesn't think looking at them will cause vomiting.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Thursday, November 19, 2009
A Month in the Life
Ok, I admit it. I clearly suck at blogging, but tonight I have managed to work up sufficient levels of guilt and an intense enough desire to not do my homework to give this thing another go. The past month has been rather eventful, to say the least. When I last left off, I believe midterms were fast approaching. No use dwelling on that subject except to say that now finals and final papers are looming large as the end of the semester is rushing forward faster than I want it to. It's more than a little weird to think that in about a month's time most of my current AMIDEAST buddies will be heading home to the States, while I stay here in Morocco. I know that a new group of kids, who I'm sure will be fabulous, will arrive in January, but I've made some great friends this semester, and I will be genuinely sad when they leave. My roommate has definitely heard a fare share of angst ridden whining on the subject as I cannot possibly imagine a better person to live with. I am fond of telling her that I am going to request "another Evelyn" as my roommate next semester.
But I digress. The past month has certainly been an exciting one. I have been to Spain...twice, visited Marrakesh, spoken to a member of Parliament, and tomorrow I am heading to the Sahara desert for a five day excursion. Where to begin? I suppose Spain is as good a place as any.
Spain part I was part of an AMIDEAST trip to Tangier, Chefchaouen, and Ceuta. Ceuta is a little tiny bit of Spanish territory hanging out in northern Morocco. For reasons that I cannot fathom, Spain sees Ceuta and its fellow territory Melilla as its foot hold in Africa and steadfastly refuse to relinquish the land to Morocco. Either way, what it comes down to is that in order to get into Ceuta we, literally, left Morocco and entered Spain. This was more than a little weird. Upon entering Ceuta we filled out our entry cards and walked through a set of chain link fences that looked disturbingly like something out of Children of Men. We then spent two hours walking around streets that were beautifully paved, looking at architecture that was decidedly European in design, and eating pork. It was quite a nice little break. When it was time to return to Morocco, we trooped back through the Children of Men gates, pas some disgusting toilets, a tiny little cat, and the random guys smuggling stuff back into Morocco, and as soon as we set foot on Moroccan territory we were sexually harassed by a group of men standing near the customs booth. It was good to be home.
My second trip to Spain was over Green March, or the long weekend that celebrates when King Hassan II organized a massive march of Moroccans into the Western Sahara to expel the remaining Spanish colonial forces and return the land to Morocco. It's a pretty big deal here, and my friends and I found it more than a little ironic that we chose to spend the weekend of Green March in Spain. Anyways, I passed my weekend exploring the cities of Grenada and Malaga. Grenada was a gorgeous mix of Moroccan and Spanish architecture, which is not that surprising given that it was the last Muslim hold out during the time of the Reconquista. Highlights from Grenada include the Alhambra, which is a spectacular old fortress full of lovely gardens and a palace absolutely covered in spectacular Arabic calligraphy, totally failing at tapas, eating an entire plate full of food only made from pork products, and drinking red wine. Our time in Malaga was spent shopping, sampling the tasty local seafood, and making poor life choices that involved blue drinks called playa iguanas. Needless to say, Spain was a lot of fun, although I did embarrass myself quite often by trying to speak Arabic with cashiers and waiters. It appears that Arabic is now my fallback language to use when I do not understand what people are saying to me. I suppose that's progress...of a sort.
My next weekend adventure was to Marrakesh, with the rest of the AMIDEAST group. This was our last AMIDEAST sponsored trip, and while it was a good time, I don't think I will be counting Marrakesh as one of my favorite Moroccan cities. Fez and Chefchaouen certainly had their fair share of tourists, but no place I've been to, besides Disney Land, can hold a candle to Marrakesh. I swear that sometimes it felt like there were more Europeans than Moroccans in the city! Marrakesh does have some great historic sites including gardens full of olive trees, a gorgeous old palace, and a hidden graveyard with a stunning tomb for the king of one of Morocco's later dynasties. After visiting all of these places, my friends and I devoted ourselves to some serious shopping. I was in rare bargaining form and seriously aided by the fact that most of the vendors were not expecting me to speak Arabic. My favorite part of our trip to Marrakesh though, was the Jamiyaa al-Fina. This is a huge open air market full of food stalls, snake charmers, fortune tellers, story reciters, and henna artists. Walking up to the square at night was an intense experience. Between the smoke visibly rising from the masses of food stalls, the smells, the music, and the yelling it is a complete sensory overload, but a lot of fun if you're in the right frame of mind. My friends and I enjoyed a delicious meal at one of the food stalls and the only shadow on the evening was a crazy little beggar kid who refused our food and insisted on following us for a good couple of minutes even though we were clearly not going to give him any money. Everyone's more aggressive in Marrakesh I guess. The night ended with a trip to the Michael Jackson movie, This is It, which was a ton of fun, as Michael Jackson is awesome and everyone in the theater sang along to all of the songs.
In between trips, school does continue, and I have made some interesting headway on my murshidat project. I have spoken to a member of Parliament, a women who is a leader in the PJD, which is Morocco's leading Islamist party. I have also visited the school where murshidat are trained and attended a class in the Islamic Studies Department at Muhammed V University. All in all, this project has been quite a whirlwind and although I have not yet managed to talk to an actual murshidat, I have still learned a lot about the program and the changing role of women in religion in Morocco. I hope that I will be able to continue looking into the issue of murshidat next semester as there is still so much I have to learn. The one dark spot of this project is that it has rather clearly brought home the sometimes seemingly insurmountable language barrier that I still struggle with. I am unable to talk to most people without a translator and miss-communication issues have resulted in some botched interviews and frustration and embarrassment on my part. Ah well. Hopefully my Arabic will continue to improve with time, and I really just have to come to terms with my decision to stop taking French in college.
The past week as been spent worrying about the three papers that I still have to research and write (which of course did not actually result in starting said research) and the impending doom of finals. I really do hate the end of a semester. Ah well, tomorrow I am heading to the desert, where I plan to put all of that yucky stuff completely out of my mind and instead focus on the beauty of sunrises over the dunes, dancing with nomads, and trying not to be too frightened of the camels! It should be rather wonderful.
But I digress. The past month has certainly been an exciting one. I have been to Spain...twice, visited Marrakesh, spoken to a member of Parliament, and tomorrow I am heading to the Sahara desert for a five day excursion. Where to begin? I suppose Spain is as good a place as any.
Spain part I was part of an AMIDEAST trip to Tangier, Chefchaouen, and Ceuta. Ceuta is a little tiny bit of Spanish territory hanging out in northern Morocco. For reasons that I cannot fathom, Spain sees Ceuta and its fellow territory Melilla as its foot hold in Africa and steadfastly refuse to relinquish the land to Morocco. Either way, what it comes down to is that in order to get into Ceuta we, literally, left Morocco and entered Spain. This was more than a little weird. Upon entering Ceuta we filled out our entry cards and walked through a set of chain link fences that looked disturbingly like something out of Children of Men. We then spent two hours walking around streets that were beautifully paved, looking at architecture that was decidedly European in design, and eating pork. It was quite a nice little break. When it was time to return to Morocco, we trooped back through the Children of Men gates, pas some disgusting toilets, a tiny little cat, and the random guys smuggling stuff back into Morocco, and as soon as we set foot on Moroccan territory we were sexually harassed by a group of men standing near the customs booth. It was good to be home.
My second trip to Spain was over Green March, or the long weekend that celebrates when King Hassan II organized a massive march of Moroccans into the Western Sahara to expel the remaining Spanish colonial forces and return the land to Morocco. It's a pretty big deal here, and my friends and I found it more than a little ironic that we chose to spend the weekend of Green March in Spain. Anyways, I passed my weekend exploring the cities of Grenada and Malaga. Grenada was a gorgeous mix of Moroccan and Spanish architecture, which is not that surprising given that it was the last Muslim hold out during the time of the Reconquista. Highlights from Grenada include the Alhambra, which is a spectacular old fortress full of lovely gardens and a palace absolutely covered in spectacular Arabic calligraphy, totally failing at tapas, eating an entire plate full of food only made from pork products, and drinking red wine. Our time in Malaga was spent shopping, sampling the tasty local seafood, and making poor life choices that involved blue drinks called playa iguanas. Needless to say, Spain was a lot of fun, although I did embarrass myself quite often by trying to speak Arabic with cashiers and waiters. It appears that Arabic is now my fallback language to use when I do not understand what people are saying to me. I suppose that's progress...of a sort.
My next weekend adventure was to Marrakesh, with the rest of the AMIDEAST group. This was our last AMIDEAST sponsored trip, and while it was a good time, I don't think I will be counting Marrakesh as one of my favorite Moroccan cities. Fez and Chefchaouen certainly had their fair share of tourists, but no place I've been to, besides Disney Land, can hold a candle to Marrakesh. I swear that sometimes it felt like there were more Europeans than Moroccans in the city! Marrakesh does have some great historic sites including gardens full of olive trees, a gorgeous old palace, and a hidden graveyard with a stunning tomb for the king of one of Morocco's later dynasties. After visiting all of these places, my friends and I devoted ourselves to some serious shopping. I was in rare bargaining form and seriously aided by the fact that most of the vendors were not expecting me to speak Arabic. My favorite part of our trip to Marrakesh though, was the Jamiyaa al-Fina. This is a huge open air market full of food stalls, snake charmers, fortune tellers, story reciters, and henna artists. Walking up to the square at night was an intense experience. Between the smoke visibly rising from the masses of food stalls, the smells, the music, and the yelling it is a complete sensory overload, but a lot of fun if you're in the right frame of mind. My friends and I enjoyed a delicious meal at one of the food stalls and the only shadow on the evening was a crazy little beggar kid who refused our food and insisted on following us for a good couple of minutes even though we were clearly not going to give him any money. Everyone's more aggressive in Marrakesh I guess. The night ended with a trip to the Michael Jackson movie, This is It, which was a ton of fun, as Michael Jackson is awesome and everyone in the theater sang along to all of the songs.
In between trips, school does continue, and I have made some interesting headway on my murshidat project. I have spoken to a member of Parliament, a women who is a leader in the PJD, which is Morocco's leading Islamist party. I have also visited the school where murshidat are trained and attended a class in the Islamic Studies Department at Muhammed V University. All in all, this project has been quite a whirlwind and although I have not yet managed to talk to an actual murshidat, I have still learned a lot about the program and the changing role of women in religion in Morocco. I hope that I will be able to continue looking into the issue of murshidat next semester as there is still so much I have to learn. The one dark spot of this project is that it has rather clearly brought home the sometimes seemingly insurmountable language barrier that I still struggle with. I am unable to talk to most people without a translator and miss-communication issues have resulted in some botched interviews and frustration and embarrassment on my part. Ah well. Hopefully my Arabic will continue to improve with time, and I really just have to come to terms with my decision to stop taking French in college.
The past week as been spent worrying about the three papers that I still have to research and write (which of course did not actually result in starting said research) and the impending doom of finals. I really do hate the end of a semester. Ah well, tomorrow I am heading to the desert, where I plan to put all of that yucky stuff completely out of my mind and instead focus on the beauty of sunrises over the dunes, dancing with nomads, and trying not to be too frightened of the camels! It should be rather wonderful.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)