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Tuesday, November 1, 2011

FEAR AND LOATHING IN MOROCCO: Or, why I’m slightly terrified of “Big Eid”


Ok, y'all may be surprised that I am posting again so quickly after my last post, but I had some complaints that I wasn't posting often enough  and found out that some of my readers (*cough, Dad, cough*) have started reading blogs of other PCVs to keep up to date on what's going on here...and we can't have that!  So, with no further ado, I present you a new post:

            Rumor has it that the “Big Eid” celebration will begin on November 7, less than a week from now.  For those of you who don’t know (and I’m gonna just make the jump and decide that most of you), this is the second Eid festival that comes after Ramadan.  And let me tell you, the first one was freaking awesome.  Definitely my new favorite holiday (at least in Morocco).  First of all, you get to eat again during the day because Ramadan is over, and that’s always a good thing.  Secondly, everyone gets all dressed up really nicely.  Thirdly, lots of extended family comes (so basically it’s a lot like Christmas in the States…lots of food and family).  But best of all, you get to eat cake and cookies for breakfast.  Ok, so I really loved that day. 
            And now the time has come for the big one…yes, I really mean that-this holiday is a huge deal, everyone has been talking about it for weeks.  Each family, if they can afford it, buys a sheep.  On the morning of Eid, we will all watch TV and wait for the King to slaughter his sheep (before TV people listened to the radio for this news and before that, I think they just estimated or something…it’s supposed to be around 10 AM).  Once he does this, mass sheep slaughtering will begin across the country.  A person can only slaughter if they have been trained how to do so correctly (this includes making sure the sheep dies right away); if there is no man in the family who knows how to do it, the family will ask a neighbor or hire a local butcher to come and do it.  So far so good.
            Now comes the scary part.  I have been a vegetarian since I was sixteen years old.  In Morocco, I eat meat from time to time (always when I’m with Moroccans and always in order to avoid offending anyone terribly); my host family kind of gets it…but also kind of not.  I always figure that, hey, if I don’t eat this, more for you guys.  But I’m pretty sure that’s not how Moroccans analyze things (at least in terms of food and meals…they just assume something is wrong with the food, etc if I don’t eat it).  So I usually just suck it up and have a little.  However, my one exception to this is stuff inside animals (heart, liver, etc); I just can’t do it, it literally makes me feel sick even thinking about it…something about the lingering taste of blood maybe.  Anyway, enough grossing my readers out.  I’m really not bothered by the general killing of sheep at Eid; I’ve seen these sheep and they are happy and carefree (there are two in my backyard who just eat grass all day) and are killed in a quick and humane way and then all (and I mean all) the meat is eaten.  That’s all fine and dandy (especially after reading a lot about factory farming in the US recently), I just kind of really don’t want to eat what will be a big part of the meal on the first day of the festival…and then continue to eat meat for every meal for the next two days afterwards.
            Eid is a three day event; the first day is the slaughtering and then eating of innards (thankfully there is a big cous-cous or tagine meal later in the day with lots of veggies).  Day two is tongue and brain.  Day three is the rest of it, though afterwards people will preserve the meat by salting it or freezing it.  I’m pretty sure everyone is eating sheep for months after this.  I guess if I can make it through day one, the next two shouldn’t be too hard.  Sure, I could just say I don’t want to eat it, but this holiday and sheep thing is a big deal.  A friend described it in the following way: it’s as if Thanksgiving were the biggest holiday in America and all that was served for the meal was turkey…and then everyone just talked about turkey and how awesome and wonderful it is for the rest of the year.  So I could say no…but I won’t.  I think it’s worth repressing my gag reflex to keep everyone happy.  I’ll post again after the event to let everyone I know that I survived (and hey, maybe I’ll really love the food, who knows), but until then, I await the holiday with some fear and loathing…