L-Eid Al Adha

            This past weekend (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) was one of the Muslim world’s most important holidays, L-eid al Adha.  This holiday, set in the month of Hijjah, marks the end of the Hajj (Pilgrimage to Mecca), one of the major religious duties of any Muslim who can afford it.  Muslims commemorate Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Ismail (notice, not Isaac in the Muslim tradition), his beloved son, and God’s reprieve of a sheep instead.  To celebrate, every family buys a sheep or goat—or several of the above—and slaughters it, cleans it out, and eats it for several days.  They often share with friends and family, and also donate some to the poor, another important element of Islam.  It is an important holiday because, in my mudir’s words, it is the day that everyone, even the very poorest, eats meat, and therefore everyone is, to some extent, equal on that day.

            In Morocco, everyone waits until the king kills his sheep at around 10 AM.  I was with my mudir and his family for the sacrifice, which was done with surprisingly little ceremony—apparently they say a silent prayer just before cutting the sheep’s throat, but since it’s silent all I saw was him killing the sheep.  It was the first time I’ve ever seen an animal killed and butchered, and I was worried I wouldn’t handle it well.  I ended up being just fine, it’s actually quite interesting, and it’s nice to know that I can handle where my meat comes from.  After letting it bleed out and go through it’s death throes they cut off the head, and hang the body neck down to let the blood drain out.  They make a small nick in the back leg and then blow air into the carcass, which apparently makes it easier to separate the skin from the meat.  The skins, my mudir said, will go to the tanneries in Fes to become leather goods—further South they probably go to Marrakech or other regional tanneries.  Then they disembowel the sheep, and on the first day the family eats liver kebabs wrapped in fat, heart, intestine, and something of unknown provenience which many volunteers think is the spleen (none of us know the Arabic word for spleen, or how to explain it).  All of it, except for the intestine, is quite tasty.  Intestine was even alright the way my mudir served it, burnt to a crisp and covered in salt and cumin, but other families ate it in a more rubbery and less becumined way which I didn’t like as much.

            When it came time for my mudir to pray and his wife to start visiting family, I went to my host family’s house, and though I tried to insist I’d just eaten they had me join in their lunch feast.  When naptime hit there I went home, but stopped in on my landlord.  I was only just able to convince him I couldn’t eat another bite of meat, but couldn’t escape without tea and cookies.  He also insisted I come to his house for dinner, and since I’d already made plans to go to my mudir’s again he had a simple solution.  I’d had first lunch with my mudir, so I must have first dinner with my landlord.  We had roasted sheep head, with salt and cumin.  It was quite tasty, but I was never quite sure which part I was eating (I know I politely declined eyeball).  At my mudir’s we had sheep head tagine, with onions, tomato, and chickpeas.  I was later told that this order of meats on the first day—liver and innards in the morning, head for dinner—is actually a Tamazight tradition; Arab families eat all the same things but in a different order.

            The next day I dedicated to my host family, and for lunch had cous cous with sheep meat (the cuts we normally eat in the west), ribs (sheep rib is delicious, though fatty), and meat kebabs.  Yes, all of that for lunch.  L-eid is like a combination of Easter in religious significance and Thanksgiving in food intake, but three days long.  It was my site mate’s last day in town, so after tea at our host family’s house he and I went to my house because our friends wanted to cook him a good-bye dinner.  Although they each brought meat from their families our host family insisted we take some of their meat too.  We ended up cooking a tomato and egg and meat tagine twice over, once in my tagine and once in my frying pan, and still there was meat left over.

            After so much meat the first two days my stomach started to protest—I probably ate more meat then I had for the last month—so for the last day of the holiday I limited my visits to dropping in on people between meals and cooked vegetarian.  Most of the day we spent removing the stuff my site mate left behind.  Although the things I inherited make my house feel much more like a home it was weird waking up as the only American in town, and still is.

            A short post this time—I’m sure tons of you are saying hamdullah (thanks to God)—but an important one.  As promised, I’ll leave you with a new Joha story.  I’ve found a book of them, so it’ll be awhile before I run out!

            There was a man who often asked Joha for advice.  Usually Joha thought the man’s problems were not very important.  One day he came to Joha with this problem: “I have a headache.  What should I do?”

            Joha replied, “I’m not sure, my friend, but I can tell you that recently I had a toothache.  I had the tooth pulled out, and it doesn’t bother me now.”