The Great Feast!
3id l’kabir (the 3 is the Arabic letter عwhich isn’t present in any other language that I know of). The big feast. 3id l’ađħa. The feast of the sacrifice. The most important feast in the Muslim calendar. The feast that was
My eldest host brother comes to my house two days before the feast and we agree that I should mozy on up to their house around 9:30/10:00. Knowing MST (Moroccan [un]Standard Time), I iterate that I will leave my house at 9:30 to arrive for the glory and the gore at 10 am. Upon leaving, he addends that if I arrive and no one is there, just wait because they will be at the mosque praying. No problemo.
My host dad comes to my house the night before the feast and curiously drinks American instant iced-tea and yummifully eats bread with American peanut butter. We chat yada yada and I express my sincere happiness and gratitude in being able to ‘3id’ with his family. He quickly responds, “your family.” Upon leaving, I notify him that as per his son’s suggestion, I will be coming the next day, arriving at 10 am, to be with the entire family for the whole shebang during this most familial of holidays. I also emphasize that I am interested to see what the differences are between the way the slaughtering is done way done here in the south and the way it is performed in the interior, as I feasted last year in Béni Mellal. Upon leaving, he, too, addends that if I arrive and no one is there, just wait because they will be at the mosque praying. No problemo.
I arise early (8:00), take my coffee and a look at the day’s news, make my bed so my mommy would be proud, get dressed in nice clothes because that’s what you do for the feast if you’re not going to be touching the blood, and begin my horizontal ascent to the host family’s house. Boys and girls are cutely dressed in their gladsome garb and every few minutes the baaaahs of a shaky sheep can be heard squelched by ‘Allahu Akbar’ [God is great]. I am truly happy today. I know what lies before me, as I am now a slaughtering-seeer pro and I can say that I understand the underworkings of this culture well enough to be able to feel how important this holiday is. Of course I feel this holiday’s importance, because I see myself becoming more and more Moroccan(-like) ever day.
Arriving at the house two minutes early, where all is quite, I knock not expecting anyone to be home. I’m surprised when my host mother opens the door, diffident as always. She says quickly, “I’m not watching, hurry upstairs.” Wow! I must be just in time. I race up the stairs pulling out my camera so I can catch these prized moments for them and for me to share with everyone. On my climb to the top, my youngest host brother says excitedly, “Hey, here comes Ţahar!” (my Arabic name)
I climb the stairs to the roof expecting to see my four host brothers and host dad getting the sheep in position, awaiting my arrival before the day’s festivities begin. I reach the next-to-last stair. I know that bugger of a sheep won’t be very happy seeing that yet another person has come to aid in his humiliation. I reach the last stair. I round the corner. I see before me a completely nude sheep’s carcass hanging from a string, sheep hooves scattered on the ground and a sheep’s head toasting grinningly in a small fire. I am in disbelief, I am hurt and I am pissed.
me: Why did you slaughter the sheep already?
someone: Because we had to go to the mosque early at 8am.
me: Okay…?!?
someone: Because it’s Friday.
me: Okay… it’s Friday…
someone: Because l’3id is on a Friday we had to go to the mosque early.
me: I put that together…
someone: So we have to slaughter the sheep early…
me: So why do you have to slaughter the sheep early??
someone: Because it’s Friday.
I’m already fuming, quietly, at this point and my discomposure is mounting.
me: So today Friday and why mosque early and slaughter sheep early?
someone: So that we can clean it up in time to go back to the mosque for regular services.
me: That makes sense, but weren’t both you and you just at my house?
you and you: Yes but we didn’t know.
me: You didn’t know what? That today is Friday? That you had to go to the mosque early? That you had to slaughter the sheep early?
As this continues, I feel more and more like an dumb outsider that’s been merely saving face and wasting my time here because it becomes apparent that my feelings about the situation are clearly unimportant. I’m being mocked. That feeling I encountered so many times as a kid comes rushing back. The feeling you get when even all the really fat and uncoordinated kids get chosen before you for the neighborhood soccer game.
someone: I swear we didn’t know until last night.
me: When you were at my house two nights ago, did you not tell me to come at 10:00?
someone: What time is it? It’s 10:05. You’re late.
me: I’m ignoring you. And you, when you were at my house last night, did you not tell me to come at 10:00?
someone: Yeah, but he didn’t know until he got home. They just said it after he walked in the door.
me: What?!? Is this something you have to be told about? And if the illusive ‘they’ didn’t say anything, you would have slaughtered at 10:00?
someone: Yes.
me: Do you not have a phone? Do you not have two phones in the family? Do I not have a phone? No! We all have phones!
someone: Hmm…
I know this is Morocco. And because I know the culture well enough, I know there’s no way on this planet earth that I am going to be conceded a victory. And a victory, per se, is not what I want. I need a heartfelt apology recognizing that they disconcerted my every wish for being, as they constantly attest, a purported family member and that they feel just a smidgeon of my utter discomfiture and bewilderment. It’s wretched chagrin. Wretched because I know I have to swallow all my remaining dignity and feign as if nothing had ever crossed my path,
because that is what you do, and that is what I do, and it hurt like hell.
January 25th, 2005 at 23:00
I love the way you write. You’re able to capture and convey your emotions just as you felt them… I’m sorry for what happened, but you turned it into a great essay.
January 26th, 2005 at 08:03
It’s funny how you seem to really want to attend the slaughtering of the sheep. We have not slaughtered a sheep in my family since 1995. And we I spend the 3eid with my extended family, I never care about actually watching them do it…
I wrote about my 3eid on my blog. Completely different, I am afraid ;o)
M.
January 28th, 2005 at 21:12
Slaughtering of animals as a sacrifice must have an age-old tradition. When we were in Armenia last year (christian since the 3rd century AD and atheistic under Soviet rule for almost a 80 years) our guide (head of the all-Armenian tourist-office) told us eloquently, how she sacrified a lamb at an old monestary in order to thank for the graduation of her son. All the comprehensive details were just natural for her: how the animal was fed with salt first, that more salt was rubbed into his ears, how the knife had to cut through a certain side of the throat, which parts of the animals were burnt, which were offered to the priest and what was left for her and her son. - I wonder, why customs like that were lost in good old central Europe.
January 28th, 2005 at 21:42
Joshua, I’m moved by this entry. I am sorry to hear that things worked out in this way. I know you were really looking forward to it (I mean two entries in anticipation), but I hope writing this has helped you through it. I actually took a pretty deep wound this week, too, and I know that writing about it on my blog helped me. What’s especially interesting for me in this is that I always thought you had pretty thick skin back in the day. Not sure if you were good at hiding it or if I just wasn’t paying attention, but I’m sorry that either had to be the case. Will you write more in a couple of days and let us know how things are between you and your host family?
Also, I’m with Scott. This is positively engaging, and I’ll go one further and say that I think you should try to get it published.