Eied

            The ever-bustling passageways of the labyrinthine Medina were eerily deserted. Every single shop lining the walkways was closed, corrugated metal barriers ominously assuming the place of overflowing, Arabic-pop-blasting storefronts. The streets (if you can call them streets) were silent except for frequent hacking noises, the occasional whoop and holler, and the subtle crackling of flame. Oh, yeah, about that - there was a sizeable bonfire every 50 feet or so. Large Moroccan men - some smiling blithely, some briskly irritated – ambled hurriedly past me with massive, menacing knives lying tensely at their sides and large, obvious blood stains flayed across their dirtied clothes. The sometimes-tiled floor of the ancient walled city was all kinds of rank, smeared with ashen charcoal and the occasional red dot or smear. If you looked at the red closely enough, you would soon realize that the spacing of the dots was very regular, and then you’d see that it was blood you were staring at. The regularity of the dots made it seem as if a wounded soldier had limped his or her way down the very street you were walking on, and his or her shattered leg had smeared some of the blood.

            “This is so utterly surreal,” I remarked in Mandarin to my Chinese friend.

            Let me back up a bit.

            Roughly seventy days after Ramadan, the Islamic world celebrates Eied, a holiday that commemorates Abraham’s dedication to God. This is customarily done by buying a lamb, sacrificing it, butchering it, and distributing the meat: one third to the poor, one third to friends, and the final third to one’s own family.

            During the entire week leading up to Eied, I saw people carting lambs throughout Rabat. I even spied a lamb shoved into a car trunk once!

            Throughout the night before Eied, the city echoed with the warbly cries of the lambs holed-up in apartments. They sounded uncannily like the calls for prayer broadcast across the city five times each day. Having developed the habit of keeping track of time via the prayer calls, all the new false alarms threw me off.

            I woke up early on the day of the festival. As my host family decided to spare the expense of purchasing a lamb, I walked to a fellow volunteer’s host house in the medina to witness and hopefully partake in the celebration. I began to see the bonfires as soon as I turned on to the main street.

Why the fires?  To burn the hair off of the lamb heads and cook them a little bit.

I entered the medina. It was desolate but not quite devoid of djelabba-donning denizens. I arrived at my friend’s house and saw a hapless lamb tied-up in a corner of a courtyard. I greeted the father, smiling as I again spoke the well-rehearsed sequence of Moroccan greetings. After discussing his model-boat building hobby, I asked if I could help prepare for the sacrifice in any way.

I cleaned-up the plot of brick intended for the sacrifice and joined the mom in smearing henna on the bridge of the lamb’s nose.

            I again again if there were anything I could do to help.

            My friend’s host brother, now brandishing a long, freshly-sharpened knife, replied, “Nope.”

            One thing I’ve learned in Morocco: it’s customary to turn down offers at least once.

I asked again.

            He hesitated for a bit, then remarked, “Actually, yes, there is.” He gestured for me to come over and help hold the lamb down. The dad had wrestled it to the ground and was holding the head. The brother firmly clamped down half of the body and indicated for me to grasp the animal’s hind legs.

             I‘d heard they hang the lamb upside down after slaughtering it to let the blood drain and the meat for at least one day. I assumed that they would hang the lamb first before slaughtering it. That is not what happened.

            There I was, thinking that I was going to help them hoist the lamb up onto the loop of rope above us, when the host dad whipped-out a large knife from nowhere and quickly brought it down onto the lamb’s neck. Blood burst out of the wound in a huge gush -   it had an odd crimson tinge. It looked like a certain color of paint Moroccans use to mark high-quality melons more than anything else.

            I was not ready for this. The blow came swiftly and suddenly. I just went with it.

            My Arabic teacher had told me that they sacrifice the lamb with a deft slice across the jugular so that it dies instantly and feels no pain – ergo, I thought the lamb would just simmer down and kick the bucket peacefully.

             That is not what happened. Instead, the lamb kicked and gurgled and shook for a solid minute or two. I kept clamping down on its leg. After the lamb had finally died (or stopped moving, rather), I helped the family raise it up to the rope and clean up the blood. I thanked them and headed home.

            And there you have it. 

My first Eied.

            Walking home, both stunned and fascinated by the ritual, my Chinese friend called me up asking me to join him and a co-worker for the afternoon. His company gave him Eied off and he asked if I knew the best place to check out the Eied festivities.

Oh, did I ever. I suggested we head down to the medina.

It was quite a treat. Talking about it in Chinese was made it even sweeter (and a little bit more surreal).  

Two things in the first paragraph still deserve explanation:

The guys carrying knives? Hired butchers who travel between the houses of people who cannot or will not carve-up the lamb themselves. The blood? From the lamb carried through the streets.

            We then headed back to the coworker’s house for a delicious home-cooked Chinese meal. As we cooked, I couldn’t help but feel a little differently about the knives as I chopped up veggies and garlic.

            When I got home, there were drops of blood all up and down the stairwell. Spooky.

            Fun little side note – I ended up speaking English, Chinese, Moroccan Arabic, Standard Arabic, and a little bit of French that day. It was memorable indeed.
          Now for some pictures.

 The medina...

...and again.

Me and my Chinese friend.

 Some lamb skins. They're made into furniture after the festival.

Me holding a lamb head.