The Festival of Sacrifice

Warning! This post contains pictures of sheep being sacrificed. Some of the pictures are graphic.

For this holiday every family that can afford it will sacrifice a ram

building to my west

building to my east

building to my north

The sacrifice is to commemorate the almost sacrifice of Ishmael in the Koran. The holiday is known as the Festival of the Lamb, Festival of Sacrifice and the Big Festival.

The man in the apron was the one to slaughter all of the sheep. He was very careful about making sure the kinfe stayed sharp. Here they are preparing to slaughter the sheep

The sheep are killed acording to tradition and religious codes

This is the most important holiday here. People spend fortunes on their sheep. This sacrifice is not something they take lightly. Every part of the sheep will be used

building to my south

The heads have to be hair free to be cooked. These are some of the local youth. They are burning the hair for a very small fee so they can earn a little money

This is the blood running from the city into the river (and eventually the ocean)

Many people visited the cemetary today

The ocean waves turned red. A local news agency estimated that 300,000 sheep were sacrificed in my city today

Christmas trees and sheep

This weekend, my roommate and I decorated our Christmas tree! We bought a tree and ornaments from another American in town and now our apartment is looking pretty festive. Stay tuned for more pictures as we continue to decorate!

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This Tuesday is the Eid El Kabir. Ever family that can afford a it will sacrifice a sheep for the holiday. Today, my roommate and I walked around town to see how many sheep we could find. Here are a few of the day's photos. Enjoy!

This poor sheep was sitting by a pile of already-slaughtered sheep...poor guy

Sheep in a pickup

This sheep seemed to be quite a handful...he didn't want to cross the street

These are whetstones...people need sharp knives to slaughter sheep

Veggie Market

Charcoal to cook the sheep

These guys were bringing home their sheep and I asked to take a picture. They were really exctied to show off their sheep

This man is leading sheep on a leash on the sidewalk of one of the biggest streets in town

The second one was tired of walking....

Usually, people can buy snacks from this shop....now it is a make shift barn

These are the sheep delivery men. They were bringing this little guy to one of my neighbors

These are a few of the sheep currently living in the basement of my building. Yes, the building smells like sheep.

driving and other fun things

Usually I use public transportation to get around. In the city I walk/ride my bike or take buses and taxis to get where I am going. If I need to go to another part of the country, I take a train. Recently, I have been driving…. a lot. Driving here is a lot different than driving at home. Technically they do drive on the same side of the street as Americans do but, only technically. It is not uncommon to see two lanes become three or even four. And as long as your car is facing the right direction, who cares if you are actually going the right direction. In America, it is rude to honk at some one as soon as the light changes. Here, it is expected that the person in the front does not see the light change (as you stop just after the light not in front of it like in the states) so it is rude not to honk. It is also expected that you will hit other cars as you back up, pull forward, turn etc. You will also be hit. For example, I was recently waiting in the car in the parking lot of the airport when the car that was trying to park behind me hit me hard enough to slightly move my parked car. He didn’t even acknowledge this as he grabbed his bags and headed inside. I laughed (and took a picture).

Other odd things about driving here:

• People don’t like turning left from the left hand lane so they pull all the way to the right, block all traffic (both directions) and pull out
• There are two kinds of round-abouts here. In the first kind the people entering the round-about has the right of way, in the second, the people in the round about have right of way. Funny thing is there is no way to tell them apart.
• There are donkeys pulling carts on the same streets as cars driving 100km per hour
• People are always running in and out of moving cars
  
  

Other fun things here
This week I went to a carnival with some friends. The rides were similar to what you find at carnivals in the States. One thing was obviously missing though: lines! There were no lines. When a ride (like bumper cars) was about to begin, a whistle would blow and the entire crowd would run forward pushing and shoving to get a car. Those who didn’t manage to get a car got back on the platform and waited for the next whistle. The rides were also a little shady. At one point one of the rides got stuck and a man jumped down into the base of the ride and started punching the wheel with one hand while holding a cigarette in the other. Another ride was so improperly balanced that it bounced up and down and made creaking noises as it spun. We had a great time but after just a couple rides we gave the rest of our tickets away to some kids.






I go to the beach at least once a week to hang out and boogie board. This guy is one of the new beach patrolmen.

6000 Camels and "ooh! snap dragon"

This weekend I went to a nearby city. Here are some pictures from my weekend....

Dying thread

anti-smoking add

For those of you who are wondering about the blog title....

we visited this nearby city with a group of 10 american women. We definitely attracted attention walking down the street. As we passed one particular shop the shopkeeper called out "6000 camels for you" to someone in the group. It was actually pretty funny. I guess it would be more flattering if we had not just walked up on a camel meat market with heads like this one hanging from the walls.

fun door

cute old man

tannery

tannery

tailor

guy sleeping next to taxi

one of many city gates

the palace

baking bread

inside the oven

incredible cous cous

Wedding Fun

This weekend I got to go to my first North African wedding! The party started on Friday night with a henna party. All of the girls got henna on their hands. The bride got henna on her hands and feet.

Mostly we sat around and talked for a few hours but we also got to join a procession of gifts for the bride from the groom. The procession was full of music and dancing! After the groom came in and everyone got pictures with the happy couple we ate some amazing cous cous for dinner and called it a night (total time: 6hours 35 minutes).

The actual wedding ceremony was on Saturday. We got to the wedding at about 9:00pm and we sat and talked for a while. The men sat on one side of the room and the women sat on the other. Around 10:45 the women were taken to small rooms were we enjoyed chicken tajine and safa (a noodle dish with powdered sugar, cinnamon and candied peanuts). After dinner we sat and talked for while. Then we danced. Then we watched other people dance. Then we talked some more.

Finally, at about 1:30am the bride came in. She was carried around in a little chair and everyone cheered and danced.

When she finally sat down on a sofa everyone took pictures with her. Then she changed into a different dress and the party started again. I had to leave around 3:00am but the party lasted all night long!