Eid l Kabir

     It's Eid el-Kabir, one of the most important Muslim holidays. On this occasion, every Muslim family who can afford a sheep is obliged to buy one, sacrifice it, and then eat just about all of the organs. The holiday lasts five days total, from Wednesday until Sunday--but the last two or three days are like a gentle awakening from vacation stupor, a return to the normal cycle of day-to-day life.
     My family hosted three slaughters in our living room, because we have the biggest house among all the relatives. Also, our living room has a drain in the corner, which proved to be very handy in cleaning up the mess.
     I thought my presence for the ritual would be an inconvenience, or at least an irregularity, and it was with meek expectations that I asked if I could take a few photos of the event.
     "Mashee Mushkil!" I was told. No problem at all!
     As it turned out, I wasn't the only one to wield a camera for the slaughter. Camera phones, camcorders, point-and-shoots...everybody had some gadget in hand. Anyway, photos and such will come later. Let's start at the beginning of the day.
     I awake at a quarter to 7. The sunrise call to prayer is thickened this morning by a chorus of cheep thousands strong, bleating their last heartfelt bleats across the city. I think about going for a run--yesterday's early morning jog was nice--but I decide against it. It somehow seems irreverent on this holy day, and I besides, I don't want to clash with holiday preparations in the street. I imagine harried Muslims carrying last-minute sheep home on their shoulders, or children sent out by their parents to find just one vital bunch of mint for the afternoon tea.
     I clomp up to the rooftop and watch the sunrise through squinted lids, my whole body slowly shaking off the rigor mortis of a long night's sleep. Already some fires in the street are smoking, contributing the first clouds in the haze of sheep smoke that is to envelope Fez today.
     At about 10 o'clock, the festivities begin.
Three sheep, slaughtered one by one on the living room floor. It starts with everyone standing in the living room. Nothing out of the ordinary, but we're clearly waiting for something. And if you look close, you'll notice rolled-up sleeves, grimy workshirts, and splattered track pants; all perfect attire for a sacrifice.
     First, my host father and his brother bring Sheep #1 down from the room that has served as their pen for the past few days [side note: it has been great: their room was directly above the bathroom, so every morning when I washed my face and took a whiz (I'm bringing that euphemism back if it's the last thing I do, dammit), I could hear them clattering around, nuzzling the hay and bumbling into one another's natty hides]. The sheep is wild-eyed and flighty. My host dad pulls its legs out from under it and holds it steady by the hooves, while his brother spreads apart the thick wool on its neck, clearing a spot for the knife. The air in the room is alive with the chatter of an entire Moroccan family; words and exclamations are punctuated with the groans and grunts of the sheep.
     When they cut the throat, the frantic bleating ceases, only to be replaced by a rasping scrape of breath, taken in not from the mouth or the nostrils but from the brand new opening in the throat just below the jawline. The sheep bleeds out for a while, my host uncle kneeling on the neck to hasten the process. Then he wrenches the head around 180 degrees and takes it off completely. Next they remove the front legs, cutting from below the knees or elbows or whatever sheep have. After that, my host dad pokes a hole on the inside of a hind leg, puts his mouth to the opening, and proceeds to inflate the sheep. Now, I'm not a medical doctor, but I assume this helps separate membranes and what-not, making the sheep easier to skin. Once the sheep is sufficiently bloated, they string it up by it's hind legs and skin it, and then remove all of the organs, separating the edible from the garbage. And hardly anything, I soon realize, is garbage. The next two hours are a blur of bloody wool, innards, and smiling relatives.
     I want to write more. And I will! But later. Now I must return to the city. Here are a few pictures of the holiday to tide you over until next time. And if you would like to see a video, let me know. I feel a little odd about posting it on the blog; it's really graphic. Is that something I could get in trouble for?

This is my cousin Abda il. He's a hyper, sweet little kid who spent the holiday flitting around the room, dodging blood smears and trying his hardest to get into every picture and video.

Dear old Baba, blowing up the sheep.

I have no idea who this man is (the one reaching into the carcass). He burst into the living room shortly after we killed Sheep #2. He was accompanied by a teenage boy; the two of them made quick work of skinning and gutting the first two sheep, then left.

Into the Hamam

It's half past 11 p.m. in the Medina of Fez, and I'm face down on the floor of a public bathhouse, while a man whose name I don't even know works up a lather on my back and scrubs me down with a brillo-pad glove. This is my friendly neighborhood Hamam, and my very first (much needed) bath since coming to Morocco. My host father is the aforementioned nameless man. Already I've been a week in his home and I still don't know what to call him. I've heard him referred to as Baba a few times, which is the Darija equivalent of "Daddy." I have yet to adopt this cutesy term of endearment, but I'll need to figure out some name for him soon. As a rule, people don't really introduce themselves by name in this family. I think this is because everyone comes and goes with such regularity, formal greetings and goodbyes aren't necessary. It's basically understood that you will see the other person again, and probably within a couple of hours. 

Anyway, back to the Hamam. Also known as a Turkish bathhouse, the Hamam is a public place where people come to relax, socialize, and get clean. Hamams are segregated by sex; ours is for men from 6 am to noon, for women and small children from 12 until 9, and then for men again from 9 until midnight. Just about every neighborhood in the Medina has a Hamam. My family--like many in the Medina--doesn't have a shower in the house, so everyone goes to the Hamam once a week--twice a week in the summer. And if you think one shower per week is not enough, you clearly have not been to a Hamam.

And until now, neither have I.

I am completely clueless in the Hamam, so I mostly keep a sharp eye on my host dad and try to do as he does. First we grab about eight big blue buckets, and line up with some other men by a fountain of hot water. We fill our buckets and then find a spot in the corner of the room. We dump out a bucket of water on the floor, and then sit in the hot puddle. The bath has begun. From his toiletry kit my host father procures a sandwich bag full of what looks like axle grease. He slaps a handful into my palm and mimes a scrubbing motion on his body. I follow suit. Every few minutes he dumps a bucket of water over me, while I frantically scrub at myself, trying to work up a lather and rinse off within the same bucketload.

Then it's time for the scouring.

Shick. Shiick. Shiiiiickk. This is the sound of me losing skin. As my father labors away across my hide, I notice white flecks on my bathing shorts--spongy crumbs of sluffed off skin. The novel experience of being vigorously scrubbed in a public place is complicated by the fact that I'm not sure if this is customary, or if I'm receiving special treatment. Do all Hamam-goers help each other in this way, or is this process usually reserved for infants and the infirm? There's no way to know, so I might as well just enjoy it while it lasts. This proves more difficult than it sounds--my host father scrubs very hard. It's no problem for most parts of the body, but he gets really overzealous with the armpits and the collarbone area, two very tender spots.


The shower chamber is a large vaulted room of glossy green and umber tile. It's clouded with steam, and cluttered with the clatter of men maneuvering their plastic buckets and toiletry kits. Two young men sit together in the corner, several blue five-gallon buckets of hot water by their side. They look on, probably curious and amused to see this pasty Westerner in a Hamam for the very first time. My host father taps my shoulder and gives me a smirk, nodding toward the men as if to say, "look, you have an audience," then dutifully continues to scrape off several pounds of my flesh.

After that, my host father retreats to the other room to scrub himself (so I was getting special treatment back there) and I sit amongst our buckets, following the example set by other men and massaging my legs, arms, and chest. Then we shampoo, followed by one last scrubbing, this time with a softer sponge. By the end, I'm pruney, pink, and thoroughly refreshed.

Entry: In Which I Can't Remember the Numeral of My Last Entry, So I Will Not Include One in the Title. [there are photos in this post!]

     A view from the rooftop. If I understand my host sister correctly (and there's a good chance I don't), the building that looks like a castle is actually a hotel. Notice all the satellite dishes; they're scattered all over the Medina rooftops.

     My room. It's furnished with a big bed and several long couches, so I can practice many different techniques of reclining and lolling about. I'm not sure how old my house is exactly, but I know there are engravings in the walls that date back to the 12th century. Now, I don't know if the engravings were restored and installed in the house or what, but I'd believe it if you told me this house was about 900 years old. Something about it just feels ancient: thick stone walls, an open courtyard for a living room, high ceilings, a tiny winding staircase, etc.

The aforementioned mosque, seen from the roof.

Here I am in a Quranic school in the Medina. These little schools are for kids from about 2-5 years old. They're pretty much the same as preschools in America (snack-time, singing songs, etc.), except the children study the Quran. We stopped to visit one of these school on our tour of the Medina last weekend, and the children sang us some songs, recited the five pillars of Islam, and showed off their language skills (Fus'ha, English, Darija, and French. These kids are amazing!). The little girl sitting in front of me also gave us a lesson on pronouncing some letters of the Arabic alphabet. "Very good," she said when we had finished mucking through. [side note: I'm not sure how I ended up being the only visitor sitting in the tiny-sized desks. The little guy in the red sweatshirt seems to be wondering the same thing.]

A communal bakery in the Medina. Families from various neighborhoods bring their unbaked bread to this man, who marks the loaves of dough (using the the white stick you can see in his mouth) to indicate which family it belongs to. Then he bakes the bread in a giant stone oven the size of a living room and stacks the finished flatbread on a shelf, ready for pick-up.

That's all for now. 

Another Truncated Entry

Okay, Morocco:
I don't know what to say. The first time I used the bathroom, I peed on my leg. This is not my fault. My family has a Turkish toilet (i.e., a hole in the ground with a giant cork in it and a bucket of water beside it). It's tough to get the perfect squat on the first try, but I'm improving with each day. Considering it has only been a few days, I'd say I'm pretty good at using the bathroom, if I may toot my own horn.

Moving on. My house is across the street (a street scarcely more than five feet wide) from a mosque, and I hear the call to prayer three out of five times in the day. This mosque is only one out of hundreds in Fez, so each call to prayer is a veritable orchestra --something between dueling chainsaws and the battle-cry of a swarm of angry, pious bees.

Moroccans really know how to relax. Never before have I spent so much time just sitting in the company of others, doing nothing in particular. It's fantastic.
Aggh, I must go. I'll be late for class if I go on any longer. I promise I'll post a video soon.

b'slaama!