Eid Al Adha (The Festival of the Sacrifice)

     Tomorrow (October 16th) is Eid Al Adha, or the Festival of the Sacrifice. Eid is the second most important holiday in Islam besides Ramadan. True to the name, almost ever  Muslim family in Morocco will be sacrificing a ram tomorrow morning. Although I wasn't really sure what to expect (and am still not sure) our school has been trying to prepare us with several lectures on Eid in the past couple of weeks. Because I find it so interesting, here's a brief background and explanation of the festival.
     The meaning of the ritual sacrifice comes for the story in the Old Testament of when Abraham was told by God to take his only son  Isaac, Ishmael in the Quran, and sacrifice him to prove how faithful he was. Just as he was about to sacrifice him, an angel appears and tells him to not go through it and to instead sacrifice the nearby ram that was caught in the bushes. Abraham in this story represents complete submission unto God and the sacrifice symbolizes belief in God and God's mercy on believers. Every year on the lunar calendar, Muslims sacrifice goats, yew, sheep, camels, or even a cow to represent this story. Most people prefer rams because of the symbol of the ram in the story. Although this tradition might sound a little outdated or gory the significance of it is pretty meaningful. The soul is considered the most sacred thing in Islam. When they sacrifice, they say "Bismellah" which means in the name of God, or with the permission of God. When one sacrifices a ram they are doing it to take the ram's life, they do it in the preservation of the human's life. That being said almost every part of the ram will be used/cooked in some way and a good portion of the meat is given as charity to the poor.
     In Morocco for Eid  people pay the most attention the sacrifice. Every family gets a ram. Many would rather sell their furniture then have their neighbors have a ram and not them. People save up all year to by a ram. Because it is a sacrifice to God, only the best ram will do. If people are financially unable to get a ram its is not a problem. Celebrating Eid is encouraged in Islam but if one is not able to do so they will not be punished by God.

My host families ram and my host cousin's family's ram

Rams chilling in the house.  One ram for each nuclear family in the house.

    On the day of Eid 6 to 6 and a half million rams are sacrificed in Morocco alone. Pretty hard to believe, but consider how many animals are slaughtered in the United States on a daily basis, or even how many turkeys we go through on Thanksgiving, it does put this whole thing into perspective. That being said....sheeps about to go down here. Last week stalls selling hay and charcoal have popped up all over the medina. Also boys have built forts of hay all around the medina that they chill in and smoke and listen to music. Pretty jealous of their hay forts.  In addition to all of this, we all knew Eid was approaching because of the random sheep and rams being dragged or carried around in the medina. Also recently, men sharpening very large knifes have added to the festive decorations around the medina... it's not looking to good for those rams. I saw my families ram the other night it is on the terrace of my host cousins house so that is where I'll be tomorrow. It's pretty weird to think about how just about every household has at least ram or sheep in their house of on their terrace. It is also pretty loud outside because of all the noise the animals are making. The call to prayer  tonight was certainly a little bit more lively tonight with hundreds of rams "bahhing" along to it. Tomorrow is going to be a pretty bloody day. As our professor said, "Don't be alarmed if you see men walking around with bloody knifes and clothes... It's just Eid". I'll get around to updating this post after D-Day and add some pictures.

     Alright this second half of this blog post is coming at you post-Eid. And it will be containing some photos that are pretty gory so heads up, or should i say heads off...
Eid began in the morning with the men going to pray. My host sister and I walked over to her cousins house after I finally got to sleep in a little. When we got to their house we waited for the men to come come home from prayer so we could have breakfast. After a delicious breakfast and some tea we watched the prayer on the TV and saw the king do the first two slaughters. Traditionally, the king slaughters one ram for himself, and then one ram for the people who can't afford a ram. The people of Morocco usually wait for the King to slaughter the rams before they slaughter theirs. Soon many of the men in my host family came and changed out of their traditional robes into clothes that they didn't mind getting dirty. My host father and brother came in decked out in rain boots and a set of coveralls. My host grandmother's brother, a sweet old man that I talked with during breakfast pulled out a  couple of massive knifes and we all climbed up onto the terrace to watch (including the little kids). The men did pray before they went to get the first ram. I felt really bad for the rams because you could definitely see that they sensed something was about to happen. They were extremely skittish. I wasn't too sure about how I was going to handle watching an animal get slaughtered. Generally, (probably due to the massive number of injuries I have acquired) blood doesn't make me squeamish but I knew this was going to be a little bit different. Although cutting the ram's throat and bleeding the ram makes for a pretty bloody time, it is the most humane way to kill the animal. As soon as the artery is cut, the ram loses circulation to the brain and instantly goes unconscious. This is in fact the way that kosher butchers kill animals.  The worst part of it, I think was the sound of the blood squirting out after the artery was cut. Not going to be able to forget that for a while. Again the pictures are pretty bloody but it was kind of cool to see the whole family helping. Everyone had their own role. The women would provide buckets of water to clean the blood of the animal and they would squeegee the blood down the drain.  My host sister got right in there and helped hold the ram so her father could skin it. I didn't help because I felt I would get in the way but I was in the splash zone. The second ram was pretty hard to watch because this guy had no doubt in his mind what was about to happen to him. He put up a little bit of a fight and the knife didn't cut all the way through the artery the first time.
     After the animals were killed and the heads were cut off, they proceed to hang the ram upside down from the top of the terrace so they could skin and gut the ram. Just about every part of the ram is used whether its the head that is roasted, the skin that is donated to the tanneries, or the organs which are put on skewers and roasted.  I'll put the pictures all in a row here in case you want to skip through them. At one point of my host cousins was making fun of the faces I was making and would come up and "Baaaah" really loudly behind me the whole time. He also asked if i was hungry after the second sacrifice to which I politely told him that I was not hungry yet.

After watching for a little and taking pictures me and the other American students that were there decided to go walk around in the Medina and see what was happening in the streets. When we started walking around we got to the street that I live on and all my host cousins and their friends were roasting rams heads in the street after chopping off the horns. They were all laughing at me because they would pretend to try and touch me when their hands and clothes had blood on them but it was great to see them all and wish them Eid Mubarack Sayid (a Happy Eid).

Roasting heads in the street

My host cousins and me... and the ram heads....

Sheep skins collected on the main street of the median 

Earlier that morning I found out that me and my host mother were spending the weekend at my cousins house  (never know whats going on until its going on here) so I went home to get clothes and some books. Because of this I lost the group I was with but decided to walk around and try and find them. Everyone in the streets (all men) were so happy and friendly despite the fact that were bloody. This slight factor did not deter them from walking up to shake hands with me and wish me a happy Eid. In the main street in the medina, Mohammed the Fifth, there were hundreds of  skins laid out on top of each other, and other groups of men roasting heads. Some people will give their head to the boys to roast and then pick it up later and use it to cook, or in their cous cous. They just droped the head off at the friendly neighborhood head roasters.  The entire medina was pretty much enveloped in a large cloud of smoke.There were also carts of bags of trash and guts that people didn't need from the rams. The closeness of the community and importance of spending time with family and close friends was certainly very visible that day.

When I got back to my cousins house we sat down to feast of skewered kabobs and olives, and eggplant dishes, and bread. The skewered meat was the liver and stomach of the ram. Liver was not my favorite but it was still good. The rest of the day we hung around the house, got some reading done and everyone took naps and chilled. Late that night about 30 people in the family came over for a cous cous dinner. We even had a pre course of cous cous before the official dish. It was amazing. In order to prepare for this large dinner, my aunt had a giant tub of cous cous, it was the most I've ever seen at once. Dinner was amazing. The rest of the night we sat in the saloon and I arm wrestled with my guy cousins (almost won) and played with the little kids. It felt very similar to the vibe of holidays back at home with lots of family time and relaxation.

The next few days consisted of more ram at every meal. Moroccans pretty much eat every part of the ram including, spleen, pancreas, testicles, and the head.  So that was pretty much my Eid! All's wool that ends wool...