Eid Kabir/ ISP is OVER!!!

So Eid Kabir is the name of another grand Muslim holiday in Morocco and we were lucky enough to still be here to witness the whole process. The main tradition for this holiday is to slaughter/sacrifice a sheep. As far as I know, the sheep represents a family member in a sense. It’s like instead of sacrificing a child, you sacrifice a sheep as a sign of loyalty to God or something of the sorts… Anyway, for the past week there have been SO MANY sheep being sold. If I haven’t drawn this out well enough before, everything in the Moroccan medina is just sold at little kiosks throughout the streets. New “products” come in and out and you never know what you’ll find—kind of like isles of a grocery store or better yet, a super Target, laid out throughout the streets. So now you see sheep, new sharp knives, literal tree stumps (chopping blocks), charcoal and lots of other things I don’t understand.
So this is kind of like “Muslim Christmas“ in a way. On TV before each commercial an “Eid Moombarik” (Happy Eid!) slogan pops up. And nothing was open all day. So when my host family invited me to come over to celebrate I was really excited! I was thinking it was going to be like Christmas morning! Everyone’s so happy and excited on Christmas morning, right? Well… who knew slaughtering a sheep was so much work!!! I couldn’t make it over there until 1pm so I missed the butcher coming over and actually killing the sheep, but my sister told me it was probably best I didn’t witness it—she doesn’t even watch herself. (Also, this is apparently a butcher’s BUSIEST time of the year b/c everyone needs the butcher himself to actually kill the sheep and then sometimes they filet the meat and sometimes dads do, but almost every household needs the butcher there for at least a little while…) Anyway, I guess in our family we do the filleting and when I got there 2 hours after they started, they were still cleaning up blood and such. (This is just not what I call a relaxing holiday)
So traditionally, on the day of the sacrifice, you just eat the stomach and/or the liver, heart, testicles etc. They let the rest of the meat sit out for at least one day then split up all the meat into 3 sections that you apparently give one to the poor, send one to extended family then keep one section for yourself. ALSO, the sheep head is also a key ingredient to the whole festival. When I was walking to my house there were lots of groups of men and small boys surrounded around a make shift grill of sorts, shaving the fur off the heads, cutting off the horns and then just GRILLING the entire head! It was such a bizarre grotesque thing! On Friday they apparently eat couscous with sheep head and brain? I mean the whole situation was one of the most disturbing experiences of my life simply b/c no one around me found it odd or gross in any way!! I really wish I had taken a picture of the 6 year old boy running down the street trying to hold onto 4 or 5 bloody sheep horns.
Anyway, I got to my house while they were finishing cleaning up on the roof and the large sheep body was just hanging up in the front hallway with a newspaper under it catching the small drips of excess blood. They gave me TWO skewers full of meat (remember day one is the stomach/heart/liver day) and they most definitely prepared them very rare. I was avoiding them at all cost at first and just paying attention to my salad until my sister said “be sure to eat that meat before it gets cold!” I asked what it was and she said the first piece was heart and I admit, I tried it—actually I ended up eating the whole piece but DID NOT like it. I mean, seriously… I really am not a picky eater. I’m actually quite adventurous but this crossed the line. I don’t even want to be eating meat in general let alone undercooked sheep heart. But I did try it, and didn’t vomit. My family also knows I don’t really eat meat normally so they didn’t force it on me. And if you’re wondering what it tasted like, it literally tasted like blood. (I know blood is what makes a good steak taste good but still… considering the heart is the blood-pumper, I just felt like it was EXTRA blood tasting. Ew…)
So tomorrow is couscous day with sheep head—but mom’s making me chickenJ

Also, I am officially done with my final paper and turned it in today. The research I did do ended up being really awesome and I felt like I actually discovered some fairly new information. It was at least pretty interesting to me! I mean of course in three weeks I did not do legitimate, real research that could actually be used as real social science data BUT I still felt good about itJ I simply used interviews as my sole source of data but this made sense for my project. What I wanted to find out was about what effect modernization was having on the current youth of Morocco and whether or not the changes in society were having an effect on how children today are growing up and being raised—and what adults of all ages thought about that.
I originally assumed that most people would tell me that with an increase in internet use, satellite TV and more access to the western, “modern” world, the way of life for Moroccans would be drastically improving. But, what I actually found out (to my surprise) was that most adults thought that morals, values and tradition is on such a decline that this meant that these changes in the social world were actually more detrimental than progressive and helpful. There is actually more homelessness today than ever before. (I hope that made sense…) Anyway, I wrote a 30 page paper about it and I’d be lying if I said some of it wasn’t partially full of bullshit. BUT I’m somewhat proud of it anyway! Hahaha and considering it’s been consuming my life for 3 weeks, let’s just say I’m happy I’m done!
I’ve moved into the hotel I’m staying at for the last week and I’m leaving this country in like 5 days!!! Crazy…