Our Eid Experience by Negina and Lilly

As you know, the holiday Eid Kabeer is going on right now and you got some good background info on what it's all about from Rachel's post a few days ago. Yesterday was the first of the holiday's four days and it was incredible. Lilly and I experienced so many new things that we wanted to do our best sharing them with you in a joint post.

We woke up around 6:30 yesterday to get ready for morning prayer. Us, our two host sisters, their dad, and our host brother-in-law drove to the oldest mosque in Marrakech where hundreds and hundreds of people were looking for a spot to lay their prayer rugs out on the cement and dirt grounds. First, there were numerous lines of men, standing shoulder to shoulder, ready for the prayer to come on. And us women weren't too far behind them. We followed along to the traditional morning prayer and also stayed for a specific prayer for Eid that came on afterwards.

Once we got home, our host mom had an amazing breakfast ready for us. There were cakes, and breads, and soups, and cookies that our sisters (and us for the most part) made in the days leading up to yesterday. We were warned that food was what the day would center around and that is exactly what we got. While eating, we still had planted in the backs of our minds that the sheep sacrifice was bound to happen within the next couple of hours... and there came our host brother, calling us all up to the roof, announcing that they were ready.

Negina and I were getting pretty nervous as were standing there with the butcher and his son. They were there for the skinning and to take the insides out, but the real sacrifice was done by our brother. We had our cameras ready and my eyes were glued on the knife in Hassan's hand right when he touched it to the sheep's fur. Negina looked away until the cutting was over and then all we saw was blood. Hassan seemed like he knew what he was doing because the sheep didn't suffer really at all. The whole process afterwards took about twenty minutes and then we took the bowls of insides to the kitchen where they were chopped up and prepared for the day's lunch. Our host brother-in-law, Negina, and I couldn't bring ourselves to eat the gizzards, so the family kindly made us some delicious chicken kabobs and pasta. 

We finished the night off with going to their extended families' homes and it was nice to see how close they all are. Now we're in day two of Eid; can't wait to see what's for lunch today!