L'eid Kbir

December 21, 2007

Mbrook l’Eid!

Today is quite possibly one of the best days I’ve spent in Tamazitinu, and is if not the best day I’ve had so far in Morocco, it’s in the top three.

Today is l’Eid Kbir, one of the most important holidays in Islam. I’m not a Islamic scholar, so I can’t really tell you what it’s about, but I can certainly tell you what I’ve been doing for the last ten hours.

My next door neighbor told me to get up early so that I could watch people pray outside at 7:30. A few other people said that the prayer was at eight, so I figured if I got to the place by 7:45, I should be fine. I dressed in my kaftan and sparkly asinsi (square headscarf) with fringe, and left the house at 7:30. I hiked up the hill by my house, hoping to get a good view of the prayer courtyard on the other side.

It was quite anti-climactic. I reached the summit of the hill and the white courtyard came into view absolutely empty. Maybe I missed it, I thought. My heart fell. I should have gotten there at 7:30. I decided to walk to the public oven to buy some bread in case people came over, but it was closed. Some people were out but not many, and all the women were just wearing their normal clothes. I felt overdressed and like I didn’t really know what was going on.

I finally asked someone what time people prayed. “Eight-thirty.” A few other people said the same thing, so I started walking towards my house to get something to eat. On the way, I was stopped by a neighbor girl I really like who sews at the neddi who asked me if I wanted to walk with her to the prayer site. Happy for some company, I agreed, and we ended up stopping at six houses on the way to say, “Mbrook l’eid!” “Lla y bark fik!” “Happy holiday!” “Happy holiday to you too!” I enjoyed seeing the inside of houses I’d only seen from the outside and meeting everyone, kissing the women’s hands, and seeing everyone’s “ihrruyn ujdid,” or new clothes.

We got to the prayer place and I sat with a bunch of younger women and girls, as well as a few around my age or older and we watched the men, dressed mostly in white jellabas, file into the cement courtyard, and the women, mainly older and covered in the black taharuyt wraps, walk to the dirt courtyard behind the cement one. At this point in time, I’ll admit, I didn’t think it was the best day because the American feminist in me was livid about the situation. How dare people tell me that the culture here doesn’t discriminate against women when the men have a nice, cement courtyard while the women are not only separate, but not even equal? I had to step back. This is not a fight I have any business taking on or why I’m here. I certainly want to work with women and help them empower themselves, but today is not the day to fight these battles.

A man sitting in a wooden chair read some of the Hadiths and they prayed, white jellabas in front in unison, black taharuyts splashed with color in the back.

It was really nice to watch, but it wasn’t as powerful as I thought it would be. I did like sitting in the long line of girls and having other women walk by and greet all of us, kissing our hands, us kissing theirs, people commenting on henna or my kaftan.

When it was over, I found a friend and we were talking. One of my favorite people in town, an older woman who was my next-door neighbor in homestay, happened to be her sister, and another friend (also a sister) came up and dragged me with them to some of their families’ houses. Part of what people do in Tamazitinu for l’Eid Kbir is go from house to house, and that’s what the rest of my day looked like.

We went to their parents’ house and I had some Taam with Udi: a grain like large couscous with a type of melted bitter butter on top, eaten with spoons. At one point, everyone started crying. I felt almost pressured into crying myself, because I was the only one in the room not crying, but at the same time, it would have been very insincere because I didn’t know what people were crying for. I need to figure out this group crying business and see what the expectations are for it.

We left, after the first two of at least 17 glasses of tea I’ve had today, and headed for three more houses I’ve never been to before. Two looked really large from the outside and I’ve been dying to go in ever since coming to Tamazitinu but weren’t as impressive inside, and a smaller house was the opposite. After more tea and being pressed into eating the first of the probably 16 cookies I was pressured into eating today, I split off from the triumvirate of wonderful sisters to visit the mother of one of my closest “friends,” here.

However, nobody was home, so I decided to go visit some people I knew I should see. I went to said friend’s house and greeted some women in her husband’s family, but she was nowhere to be found. “Stay for lunch!” they told me, the first of probably fifteen lunch invitations (do you see a pattern here?).

I went to my host-mother’s extended family for tea and saw two of her sister-in-laws and two of her nieces: one is just over a month old, the other about six months. I really disliked going to their house during homestay, but now, they’re one of my favorite places to visit. The women are really friendly and laid back, and the kids are cute as a button.

At this point, they said that they were slaughtering the lamb, and I went outside to watch. It had already been slaughtered, and they were in the midst of butchering the meat. There was another family that was bringing their own sheep to be slaughtered and they asked if I wanted to take pictures. Of course I did, so I took some and videoed them slitting the sheep’s throat. It was rather graphic: I guess the knife wasn’t as sharp as it could have been, so it took longer than it usually does. It didn’t gross me out though.

After watching and taking a few pictures, (“God bless your parents!” I told them, for indulging my fascination), I headed towards Ihndar, my homestay neighborhood. There were quite a few people there I wanted to visit, so I started walking.

“Katy!” I heard called across the Ihndar “plaza.” It was one of my other favorite people in town (I have a few favorites, especially depending on the month). “Were you coming to see me?” I was indeed, but rather than go to her house, she took me with her on a whirlwind tour of Ihndar’s houses, most of which I’d never been to before. “This is my aunt’s house,” (stay for lunch!); “this is my uncle’s house” (it’s the foreigner that speaks Tashelheit!), “this is my friend’s house” (stay for tea!)… I think we went to four or five houses before settling outside where three families were slaughtering their sheep at the same time.

One old blind woman wanted me to take a picture of her by her dead sheep so she could send it to her family in Spain. I better remember to get it printed. I spoke some with my hostmother’s husband’s sister, who is one of the friendliest people in town, and greeted a slew of other people. One thing I haven’t mentioned is that whenever I walk, anyone, and everyone was out and about today, greeted each other, kissed hands, said “Mbrook l’Eid…” I had to have kissed over 100 hands today and don’t even want to think of how sick I might become in the next few days.

After maybe an hour or two with said friend, I told her I really had to go to my host-family’s house. I did, and she invited me to go to the neighborhood of Bozit with her to greet her family. And thus commenced another whirlwind tea and cookies tour of that neighborhood: her brother’s family who I know, and three houses that were completely knew. I finally met her niece’s husband who is a guide in Agadir and speaks fluent English and got him to promise me a copy of his thesis: an English paper about local legends and stories. I hope he’s true to his word. I met his wife this past summer and immediately liked her and seeing her again, I remember why. Good people. The only downside is that while kissing some of the hands, I could smell the raw meat on them. Such is life.

After Bozit, I went around Ihndar with her and we went to another four or five houses, each of which included at least one cookie and a cup or two of tea, people asking about my henna and if I bought a sheep to slaughter.

The day slowed down a bit when I went to my host-mother’s house to eat lunch. I played with the girls some, and took pictures of the sheep head, which at first, just sat on a short stoop by the garden, but was moved to the ground-level branches of a date tree (palm tree) and just looked funny, growing from its’ shoots.

I made up my mind, as they started barbecuing the organ meat, that today begins my time to try to get over my fear of meat. The more I see how good the meat is here: fresh, organic, raised in relatively humane ways, the more I realize how stupid my fear of eating meat really is. In the U.S., sure, the meat is terrible: packed full of hormones, raised in atrocious conditions… but here, every part of the animal is used, from the organs to the skin, and the food is all natural. There’s no reason for me not to eat it or be open to eating meat in general or organ meat.

As they were cooking, organs floating in a small pool of blood in a big basin, my hostmother reached in and pulled out a small piece of raw stomach lining and ate it.

“You eat that? Raw?” I asked. She smiled and nodded. Her husband did the same thing a few minutes later. Well. There’s no better way to start “getting over” a fear of meat than to eat raw stomach lining, so I asked for a little piece.

It was disgusting, but edible. I’ve eaten worse. But now, since I ate raw stomach lining, I told myself that no matter what they ate today, I had to have at least one small piece. So I did: a piece of lung, cooked stomach lining, kidney, two pieces of fat-wrapped liver (actually kind of good), heart, and another unidentified organ. I won’t lie: it wasn’t pleasant, but once I forced myself to get over the initial gag-reflex and relaxed, it was all edible and I was happy to have been able to convince myself to try it. It’s all in my head, I know that, and it was a good challenge to overcome. The strangest part is that some of it’s good: liver, lung, and heart really don’t taste that bad at all. The worst is the stomach lining: not the honey-comb like texture, but some sort of bitter aftertaste it leaves in your mouth.

Lunch took a long time, and I promised the fun family in the nearest outer douar I’d visit them for l’Eid. Okay, maybe I was guilted into it. I went to their house about two weeks ago and my friend said, “If you don’t come to our house for l’Eid, we can’t be friends anymore.” I know she was kidding, but I took it as an invitation, so I walked 30 minutes over to their house.

They were surprised but happy to see me. I stayed for maybe 45 minutes and they insisted I spend the night. Obviously, I refused, but they did invite me for lunch tomorrow, which I’ll try my hardest to do. They were all dolled up with bright pink sparkly lipstick which I tried on but wiped off as I walked towards Tamazitinu center. I really like those women. They laugh all the time, which is so comforting and relaxing that it’s certainly worth the walk over.

I stopped at my young friend’s house on the way back: this is the friend who moved from her father’s house to her aunt’s house and for 4 months, lived with only her cousin and her cousin’s baby (so there was a 17-year old, a 18-year old, and a 1-year old) and who I blogged about coming over and praying in my house. However, it was only her cousin and her cousin’s son at home, so I stayed for a few minutes and continued on towards home.

There was one family in Ihndar in particular whose house I missed earlier in the day. I knew the family a bit during homestay: the woman would always haul heavy crops on her back through my homestay family’s alleyway and would have a big smile on her face and talk about how heavy it was, good-naturedly. Separately, I knew her young daughter as the friendly young girl who would often accompany me and one of the women next-door to homestay on walks and who wanted to entertain me even on her own. The father is as friendly in a harmless way as any man in Tamazitinu, and they live in one of the most humble but welcoming houses in town. While there, I met some of their extended family from my souk town and really liked one of their daughters.

And then, it was time to go home. I got home, after walking with the woman whose house was empty this morning, at 5:30, having left the house at 7:30 this morning. It was the best pick-me-up I could ask for. I’ve been feeling like I have no friends in town, which is my own fault for staying in my house, shy, playing on my computer or playing games. I realized that the people who I like are forgiving of my shyness and I can and need to go see them on a more regular basis. There are 8 houses that I feel comfortable that I can go to anytime, and another probably 8 or 10 that they’d welcome me genuinely but I’m not comfortable with. I need to do something to force myself to be more social, because today, I felt on top of the world, accepted, and a real part of the community. Maybe I’m just on a sugar and caffeine high (I most definitely am), but, all in all, it was a beautiful day. In fact, there are three houses that I meant to go to but didn’t get a chance.

Tomorrow, I’ll go, enshallah. Tomorrow, there’s an aheyduss in each douar, and I think people still go around visiting. Two of my favorite people (okay, I’ll be more specific: two of my favorite five people in town) I haven’t even seen today. I won’t be as social or crazy as I was today, but I’m hoping it’ll be another amazing day.

Today in Numbers:

Sheep I’ve seen in the process of being slaughtered: 7

Glasses of tea: 17

Cookies: 16 (lHamdullah they’re small)

People who have grabbed me and taken me around with them: 4 individuals or groups

Bites of meat eaten: 10

Pieces of organ meat eaten: 8

Distinct parts of sheep eaten: 8

Houses entered: 31

Houses entered today for the first time: 16

Number of people greeted: At least 150 if not 200 or more.

Postscript: I’m updating twice today, so make sure to read the other entry too, if you are so inclined.