Eid al-Adha - sheep, generosity, and meditations on meat

Last week, I had the pleasure of experiencing Eid al-Adha (referred to in Morocco as Eid al-Kbir), one of Islam’s most important holidays worldwide. The holiday honors a story familiar to Muslims, Christians, and Jews alike: the story of Abraham (in Arabic, Ibrahim), and his willingness to sacrifice his son by God’s command. As the story goes, Abraham is spared the fate of sacrificing his own son at the last minute, having demonstrated his faith and submission, and sacrifices a ram instead of his son. Islam places great significance on this story, a fact illustrated by the importance placed on the celebration of Eid al-Kbir. In addition to prayer, Muslims with the means to do so celebrate the holiday with the sacrifice of an animal, symbolizing Abraham’s sacrifice; in Morocco, that animal is almost always a ram. Each family gets their own ram, and every single meal for days following the sacrifice is filled with ram meat, not a piece going to waste.

I’d heard about Eid al-Kbir before, many times. Since arriving to country, I’d heard from PCVs and Moroccan nationals alike about the holiday, and though the stories took different spins, they all had one thing in common: Eid al-Kbir was something to look forward to, not to be missed. For PCVs, the holiday seemed to be revered as a sort of cross-cultural marathon, something every volunteer had to go through and would surely be awed by. In the same conversation, a second-year volunteer said two seemingly contradictory things about it: “Oh, there were so many sheep organs, I can’t even begin to tell you. We were all so sick afterwards,” and, “Oh, you can’t do Eid al-Kbir alone. You’ve got to spend it with a family, absolutely.” For Moroccans, the holiday was talked about the way American’s might talk about Christmas: excited, even months in advance, that it was approaching, and excited for us Americans to experience the best Moroccan holiday there was. The happy tone of the conversations was usually spoiled for me, though, when they would whip out their computer, and, without warning, start showing me pictures of the sheep they’d slaughtered the year before, in all its gruesome detail. Eid al-Kbir’s importance was driven home for me the most when my host mom, having heard me mention that I don’t eat very much meat, immediately thought of the holiday, saying, ‘Oh, but what are you going to do on for l-Eid?!”

Considering all of this, I found myself simultaneously dreading and looking forward to what would surely be one of the most meaningful cultural exchanges I would have in country. As the day drew nearer, it became apparent to me that Eid al-Kbir in Morocco is a lot like Christmas in America, at least in terms of its importance, the thousands of people traveling to visit their families, the way everything was set to shut down for the holiday, the week and a half-long school break, etc. Peace Corps even imposed a travel ban on us during the week of l-Eid, telling us that the roads were especially dangerous in the days surrounding the holiday due to all of the people traveling to be with their families. As the week of l-Eid approached, I started receiving a steady stream of invitations from people I knew, all generously inviting me to spend the holiday in their homes, with their families. I ended up agreeing to spending the bulk of the first day with a family that lives near me, and to visit the numerous other families throughout the week.

The day before the holiday, I went over to see the family with whom I was going to spend l-Eid, to inquire about what time would be best for me to come over the following day. Not surprisingly, I was invited inside, and soon found myself chatting and making cookies with Habiba, the mother of the household, and her daughters. I sat with them for hours, helping to dip the fresh cookies in chocolate, jelly, and other toppings. The presence of family, the anticipation of an upcoming holiday, making cookies – it truly did remind me of the holiday season in America, and my heart was warmed. They soon asked me about American cookies, and when I went home that night, I whipped up some classic chocolate chip cookies to bring over for them to try.

I’m not going to lie: through all of the holiday cheer and warm generosity of the family, part of me was truly terrified at the prospect of what I was about to witness. I had never seen an animal killed before, especially not one the size of a ram, right in front of me. Nor had I ever eaten many organs, with the exception of German liverwurst, a spread that I was unaware was even liver for the first 7 years or so that I ate it. What if I passed out in their home? Gagged while eating lungs during their special meal? Vomited all over their carpet, on their holiday equivalent to Christmas? They had generously invited me into their home on the biggest holiday of the year, and here I was unsure if I was going to even be able to hold it together. I didn’t know what to expect, but I knew that I was going to go over there and try to put my best face on, no matter what. I was just going to have to suck it up and pretend I was on fear factor, or something to that effect.

And so it was that at 8am the next morning, with chocolate chip cookies in hand and nervous lump in my throat, I walked down the street to Habiba’s house, to take part in my first Eid al-Kbir. We had an elaborate (meat free) breakfast to start out, complete with fresh-baked bread, honey, olive oil, misimin (my favorite!), bugrir (sport of like crepes) and cookies.

Shortly afterward, the main event was about to start. The family started migrating out to the courtyard, and I went out with them, sticking close Radia, Habiba’s niece and one of my favorite Dar Chebab girls. I could have opted out of watching the sacrifice, had I really wanted to; nobody was going to force me, though they clearly wanted me experience it with them. I had long-since decided that I wanted to watch it, though, both for the obvious cultural experience reasons, and for more complex reasons related to my thoughts on American culture and meat consumption.

The contrast between Moroccans’ experience with the meat they eat and the typical American experience is stark. For chicken, most Moroccans stop by their local chicken shop, usually a small, white storefront with the clucking sound of many chickens coming loudly from behind the counter. The chicken they buy will be fresh, killed, feathered, and cleaned earlier that day by the man seen behind the counter. For red meat in Morocco, one only needs to stop by the local butcher, which you can’t miss – there will be several whole bodies of fresh meat right there, hanging on hooks outside the store. Sure, there are some brands of factory-processed meat in Moroccan supermarkets, but you won’t see it sold outside big cities frequented by foreigners. For the vast majority of most Moroccans, the connection between the food on their table and the animal that had to die to make it possible is clear, unbroken; they likely saw whatever animal it was as part of one of the many herds that wander through town, or at the very least, as a whole animal, being cleaned and chopped up by the butcher down the street. And, every year on Eid al-Kabir, each Moroccan family buys their own sheep, watches it wander about their courtyard or roof, and later sees it go through the entire process, from sheep to meat to table, each of the steps in between visible for all to see.

Most Americans, on the other hand, have no idea where the meat on their plate might have come from. Was it from the farm down the road, just outside the city? Or one of the large farms driven by on the highway, while driving across the state to visit friends? Or, if bought in a typical supermarket with typical packaging, it could have come from anywhere – California, Ohio, Nebraska. Generally, we don’t know and frankly do not care. What’s more, the processed, neatly packaged and ready-to-cook pieces of meat so many of us buy are devoid of anything that might even remind us that those tasty morsels even came from an animal in the first place – no bones, fat, or skin, for us. Just the pieces that I want to eat please, the tastiest, easiest pieces to eat. As children, we likely wouldn’t even be able to tell that those chicken tenders or burger patties were made from animals, if we weren’t told so. I’m focusing on the extreme examples here, I know, and there are plenty of people who still get their meat from a local butcher or raise their own animals. Kudos to them, truly. But I’m speaking on the level of norms here, of trends and the behavior of the vast majority; and on that level, our connection between our meat and its source is terribly, glaringly broken.

The differences in the two cultures’ approaches to meat is evident at every meal, from preparation to portion sizes (the amount in a typical tagine to be shared by a family here, underneath all of the vegetables, is about the size of a single portion at an American restaurant) to eating habits. Moroccans eat every piece of the meat they prepare – the flesh, the fat, everything, right down to sucking the marrow out of the bones at the end of the meal. By contrast, I often find myself struggling here with a piece of meat given to me, not sure what is what or how to navigate around the parts I don’t want to eat. I simply have no idea what to do with meat that isn’t pre-cut, separated from all of the parts we would find undesirable in America. To Moroccans, I must look like I’ve never dealt with real meat before. I’m even frequently shown up by my 6 year-old host brother, who has no qualms whatsoever about picking through the pieces and eating meat off the bone. Though my experience is admittedly a little bit skewed because of my 2 years of vegetarianism before joining Peace Corps, I’ve heard from other volunteers that they encounter the same problem.

And so I opted to watch, decided to be a part of the entire thing, the slaughtering and cleaning and all, if only to take one small step to right what I found so wrong about the way my culture interacts with the meat. I realized, sometime during my first 7 months in Morocco, that there was something deeply strange about my aversion to the butcher shop, my fear of the animal bodies hanging there, my difficulty with pieces of meat on the bone in the tagine. I wanted to face that fear, up close and personal, and that’s exactly what I did, gripping poor Radia’s arm tightly the entire time. Radia and the other kids, for their part, bounced around the courtyard, casually eating suckers or taking pictures with their phones. This was all normal to them, underneath the holiday excitement – like kids watching their parents put up the Christmas tree or deck the halls with garland in America.

After a little over an hour, we all came inside, and I sat with Habiba while she cut up the fresh sheep organs, right there on the table in front of us. As she sliced, I pondered two things: how surprisingly huge the organs were, for one, and for two, how I was going to have to get up the nerve to eat them. She cut up the heart, liver, lungs, and I think the spleen, into little pieces, marinated them briefly in cilantro, parsley, onions, and other spices, skewered them onto kabobs, and barbecued them, on a small little open-flame grill, right there in the living room. When it came time to taste the organs, they handed me a kabob excitedly, eager to see the American discover the deliciousness of fresh Eid al-Kbir meat. Habiba’s oldest son, Jawad, who speaks English and sometimes helps me with translating things for the Dar Chebab, and to whom I had expressed some of my reservations about the organ meat, looked over at me inquisitively, anxious to see what I thought. And, to my surprise, the organ meat didn’t taste that much different from normal meat, aside from an added gamey (perhaps bloody?) taste, especially in the heart. As in every Moroccan meal, we ate with bread as utensils, and I was admittedly never so glad to have bread to wrap my food in as that day.

After we had all finished eating (I ate two whole kabobs! Success!), Habiba wrapped up 5 or 6 kabobs in bread, and sent one of her sons to deliver them to a family in the neighborhood who could not afford a sheep of their own. Charity to those in need is a part of every Moroccan holiday, and this was no exception. Throughout the day, I saw Habiba packaging up cookies and chunks of meat, all to be given to various children or families in the neighborhood.

I stayed with the family for the rest of the day, chatting with visitors that stopped by their house and going over to other families’ houses in the neighborhood to visit them. After a light kaskrot (snack time) of tea, cookies, and misimn, a bunch of cousins around my age came over, and we chatted about life while they had a hair-straightening party. It reminded me of holidays with my mom’s side of my family, all of us younger girls hanging out in the basement, listening to the Backstreet Boys and gabbing about crushes at school.

I left at around 8pm, after a full 12 hours with a wonderful family. They insisted on sending me home with an entire plate of Moroccan cookies (they loved the chocolate chip cookies, by the way!) AND a leg of lamb, which I have no idea how to prepare. Because, you know, welcoming me into your home on the most important holiday of the year, feeding me 3 meals, and everything else wasn’t enough – no, they had to send me home with food, too! Of course! Again, I have to say that the generosity of Moroccan families will never cease to amaze me.

The next morning, I woke at 8:30 to a phone call from Habiba. She was inviting me back over to their house, to have breakfast with them and watch the Boujloud in the afternoon. Though exhausted, I of course went over, happy to spend more time with their family and not wanting to miss out on any experience the holiday had to offer. Though I probably should have seen it coming, I was surprised to find that breakfast was more ram meat, on skewers again, though not any sort of organs this time. I suppose when you slaughter a ram, no matter how many visitors you welcome into your home, that is A LOT of meat to go through.

Later that afternoon, I had the pleasure of seeing the Boujloud, a tradition specific to the region of Morocco where I live, in action in front of Habiba’s house. It goes like this: Young men wear the dried skin of the ram they killed the day before like a sort of costume, and run around town to the beat of drums, scaring any passerby they might encounter. If you want the Boujloud to stop chasing you, you need to give them a few dirhams, which they donate to the local mosque. It’s a tradition not too far off from Halloween and trick-or-treating, when you think about it. The Boujloud in our neighborhood consisted of about 5 or 6 young men in actual sheep skins, and 15 or so more dressed in other costumes – monsters, bears, a Scream mask – and they really did look like a group getting ready to go out on Halloween night. Groups of children approached the street with a mix of delight and fear; they wanted to see the Boujloud, knew that it was their neighbors and friends behind the masks, and yet they were scared out of their minds of being chased by them. I saw what was the official start of the Boujloud, and it went on for days after l-Eid. If at anytime during the week of l-Eid, you’re walking down the street and hear the beat of drums nearby, you know the Boujloud are close, asking for donations in their special way. I admit that a few days later, as I was going for a walk by myself on the other side of the neighborhood, I heard the drums from around the corner and took off in the other direction, irrationally frightened by the thought of coming across them. It was only a few days before Halloween, and I smiled at the fact that I was getting to see kids in costumes and even be scared by them, all in a country that doesn’t celebrate Halloween.

I spent the next few days stopping over for lunch and dinner at different families’ houses, visiting and eating sheep meat at almost every meal. Though my mind and heart were sad to see the holiday go at the end of the week, my stomach was glad for the reprieve. Thankfully, we had some heavy rain for days after l-Eid ended, the Dar Chebab was thus closed due to flooding in the roads, and I admittedly spent a few days in my bed, recovering from the marathon of strange ram meat. Still, it was a small price to pay for rich cultural experiences, the warmth of a family, and community integration in its best form.