My Eid Kabir Sheep Saga

12-18-2007 EID KABIR SHEEP SHOPPING

‘Tis the season! In a few days it will be time for the Muslim holiday of Eid Kabir (“The Big Feast”). The day commemorates the Koranic/Biblical story in which God tested Abraham’s faith by commanding him to kill his son, but at the last minute sent a sheep instead. So in Moroccan tradition, families go out, buy a sheep, do what good ol’ Abraham did, and we all chow down!
This morning was sheep shopping time. My host dad, Hassan, cheerfully bounded up to the room I share with my host brother, Karim, around 6:00am to wake us up so we could beat the crowds and claim our prize. Maybe it’s because it’s the holiday season back home, but as we groggily bundled up for the crisp morning air, I couldn’t help but feel like we were trekking out to chop down and carry home the family Christmas tree. The whole experience actually turned out to be quite similar, except the trees moved around and “baaa-ed” a lot.
Even though we got to the market just after sunrise, it seemed like the whole town was already there. We walked past a wall of tents and trucks filled up with hay and other sheepish food, emerging into a flood of people at least a thousand strong and their fluffy goods, thousands stronger. Customers bustled about, sizing up sheep while shepherds struggled to keep their little flocks of ten or so separate from those of other shepherds. There were all different sheep-sizes to fit your budget and appetite, from little knee biters, to big bullish ones with curly horns (I swear I saw one that was at least the size of a small donkey—no joke).
The whole place was a moving mass of people and sheep-ole, all trying to get around each other in different directions. It was tough (not to mention hazardous with all the horns and all) just to move ten feet. Luckily though, if you got off balance or pushed over, odds were in your favor that you’d most likely land on and bounce off of a big fluffy sheep. So if you thought of it as a game, or a giant sheep-bouncing ball pit, it was quite fun!
My host dad—who had spent most of the morning convinced that I didn’t understand what we were going to do and thus had been looking at me, baa-ing, and squeezing my arm to see if I was a good hunk of meat all morning—would not just settle for any old sheep. He was out for a bargain! We spent two hours squishing through the sheep-crowds while he expertly squeezed their hips to make sure there was some meat under all that fluff, checked out their teeth (and some other areas I weren’t sure were necessary), and picked them up by their back legs to gauge their weight before asking the shepherd how much he was selling for. Then, of course, we had to act surprised that the price was so high, argue with the guy for at least 10 minutes—each party prodding the sheep in different places the whole time trying to prove his point about the price—after which we had to walk away in a huff saying we had seen a cheaper, better sheep, then come back ten minutes later to argue more. After finally buying it, we’d then shower the seller with praises about his generosity and beautiful children, and he’d bless all of our parents. Gotta love a good bargain war-con-make up!
Then, once we found a big fluffy guy with a black head and curly horns that passed Hassan’s approval, a new game began. It was called “guide a giant sheep who doesn’t really want to follow you through a massive crowd of shepherds and the flocks over which they kept watch.” Hassan played this game by picking up the sheep’s back legs like they were playing wheelbarrow, and piloting him forward while Karim guided him by the horns. Then we flagged down a donkey cart-guy to ship the now-four of us back home.
Everyone was eagerly waiting at home to see the prize the boys were bringing back. We proudly carried hoisted the tree—I mean sheep—into the house while the family ooh-ed and ah-ed. The kids played with the new toy, and we all sad down to a hearty breakfast as a reward.
The actual feast isn’t for a few days, so I was a bit confused as to what we were going to do with Mr. Baa-Baa Black Sheep. That is, until I went to use the bathroom that afternoon, and lo and behold, I bring you tidings of a great sheep wrapped in swaddling wool, eating hay out of his own little manger. For unto me, a sheep was bought—who now resides in my lavatory—awaiting the day when he will fulfill his purpose as the sacrificial lamb of God. And on the third day, he will rise again… as lamb chops.

12-21-2007 THE BIG DAY

Mbrouk l’Eid! Merry Eid-mas! Today is the day! I woke up to the sounds of my host sisters rolling up the carpets in the living room. I came downstairs, still a bit sleepy, greeted by a rather excited host dad holding a giant knife. He was, once again, eager to communicate the subtleties of the cultural experience in which I was about to share, so he Baa-ed again, mimed beheading himself, and doubled over laughing.
Just about that time, I heard Karim struggling with something upstairs. The bathroom slash stable was upstairs—so I figured he was having some issues with our sheep. Then from the upstairs, there arose such a clatter, I left my beheaded host dad to see what was the matter. There was Karim, ramming his shoulder against the bathroom door. Apparently, sometime last night, our sheeply-sacrifice had managed to somehow trip the door lock from the inside. Never again will I doubt the intelligence of sheep. The lil’ guy knew what was coming.
Now imagine what would have happened if Abraham’s sacrificial lamb had gotten stuck in his bathroom: He would have ended up having to sacrifice his poor son—there would have been no seven-tribes of Israel, no Judaism, no Christianity, no Islam, no monotheism whatsoever—so one can see the importance of this seminal event to the entire world and the future of humanity. With this in mind, you can imagine the passion with which we ended up having to kick open the bathroom door.
But we got the guy! We brought him downstairs, and… well… I’ll spare the graphic details for my vegetarian friends. But let’s just say I learned some important things about the inner-workings of a sheep. For instance, when you take a skinned sheep (which is actually quite skinny after you peel the wool and fat off—it’s kind of like a corn-dog) and hang it like a piñata in front of your doorway, then you open him up to get at the goodies inside, if it’s a cold day, the inside will actually start steaming! Cool!
After we sent Mr. Baa Baa back to his maker—saving little Issac and ensuring the continuation of monotheism and the Abrahamic covenant—Mama fired up the coals and we had ourselves a sheep-becue! I sat around the table with my Moroccan family, wrapping up little bits of who-knows-what organ in sheep fat, sticking it on a skewer, and handing it to Mama to grill over a wood fire. Already worn out from the days events, I wondered why everybody goes though all this effort every year when they could just go buy their Eid Kabir meat neatly packaged at the market (Butterball could make a killing on this holiday if they expanded their market). But as we sat around the wood coals, laughing, eating our intimately-slaughtered snacks, and praising God for our bounty, I realized that this is probably EXACTLY what Abraham did with his family on that day a good 5,000 years-or-so ago. I mean, down to the last detail—slaughtering a sheep and cleaning it with nothing but a knife and some helping hands, then cooking it over a wood fire and praising God with family. I felt like I was taking part in what may be one of the oldest recorded traditions in all history.
For the Lord said, “Let there be lamb, and let Hassan have dominion over all the lamb of the Ben Guerir market place.” And lamb there was, and it tasted good.
Humdu’ilah!