you can't fathom my love, dude

Subject:	Eid Mbark Said! / Love will be the gift you give yourself.
Time:	5:48 pm.

[written Wednesday, January 11, 2006]

***Be forewarned that this post is bloody and not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach***

My second Eid began with knowing goodbye nods to sheep on neighboring rooftops and balconies. I spent my first celebration of this Muslim holiday in Dakar, Senegal the year before last and knew what they would all have in store for them today. Besides all of the bahhhing and bleating, this past week I couldn’t miss seasonal goods and services of the holiday—sheep sold in spaces like Christmas tree lots at home, bales of hay piled into hay forts that shelter its vendors from the wind, huge piles of unsheathed knives for sale, and knife-sharpeners and their spinning wheels.

Yusef, a member of the Moroccan-American Student Association (MASA), invited another American, Matt, and me, to celebrate the holiday with his family. First, the three of us walked to the Hassan tower and mosque, hoping to see people assembled for the biggest prayer of the day. We missed it by minutes but took pictures of each other with the ocean and the tower. Then from the roof of Yusef’s building we watched early neighborhood sheep killings, cringing, looking away, and morbidly anticipating the spectacle of our day, the killing of his family’s own sheep. We visited it in the dark garage below the building, then sat with Yusef’s mother and sister to drink mint tea and eat malawi, a fried bread, drizzled with honey.

This Eid, unlike my last, I took many photographs, beginning with the live sheep with tied feet and ending with Yusef, Matt and me standing by the hanging carcass. Don’t get me wrong—my stomach turned the whole time, I clutched my arms around myself, I covered my mouth, I reached for the arm of a woman maid sharing one-word condolences for the sheep (“mskeen,” the poor thing). At the same time, everyone on the scene grinned nervously, perhaps to see the picture-taking Americans’ reactions as much as to see the killing itself.

Yusef’s father, dressed in white, made the first cut at the sheep’s throat and we observers stepped back to avoid the spurting blood. The animal died quickly, I think, though its body spasmed for a while. Steam poured out of the opened body in the morning chill. Like in the last sheep killings I witnessed, one of the two “freelance butchers,” as Yusef described them, punctured the sheep’s skin soon after its death and blew into the hole to loosen muscle from skin. The sheep body inflated! A sheep balloon! Vying for the position of grossest thing witnessed was the other butcher putting his long, bloody knife in his mouth lengthwise when he needed to use both of his hands. My stomach churning all the while, I was interested in the thin blood, many feet of intestines, the spongy white lungs and the rosy smoothness of the skinned animal.

I couldn’t help but consider the human body. It must look similar to this sheep body, and so I am confused by its killing in relationship to my own tenderness about the human body. I am horrified by violence committed against it. I am not casual about bodies, I have mystified the thing, and so the public destruction of them, any of them, haunts me. Is the answer that all bodies are soft but not all go unharmed? It is beyond dreamy but I wish today’s butchers had been more gentle, bracing the head while slicing the throat instead of letting it swing to the ground.

Half-an-hour later we ate. Yusef’s mother called us to the kitchen where she was preparing the meat on a tabletop grill. We tasted the first crumbly pieces of dark liver and I dreaded the rest of the day’s meals. Soon after, we all sat to eat together. I was surprised to find that bulfaf, a much discussed R’bati specialty, skewered bits of liver wrapped in fat, is not half bad. I ate two brochettes of it, a bit of “Moroccan barbequed” meat and lots of spongy bread. Plus a slice of cake and an orange. Plus, for the sake of hospitality, Yusuf’s father insisted that I drink a glass of Coke in addition to my mineral water. This was an insane amount of meat to eat. The family laughed at each other’s jokes, we talked about our pets—they had a cat named Lolita—and it all made me miss my own family, as I have truly been doing lately, even staring at their faces in pictures.

Yusef and I drove west to Temara for further festivities at the house of Mourad, a friend and Association member. Leaving Rabat we spied the flag of the American Embassy between trees. I stared at it and said it was comforting, a welcome sight, though I’d never felt too sentimental about it. We passed many spreads of burning sheep heads, too, all set to singe off their hair. During the half-hour drive we discussed Moroccan gender relations, theories on cultural identity, and something that could perhaps be boiled down to “Do Arabs in France Deserve Mistreatment, Yes or No?” I argued “No.” At points I considered that we were both summarizing ideas we had read before. And, one funny fact gleaned—Yusef told me that Moroccan weddings are The place for young people to meet each other romance-style. In fact, if someone actually met their significant other in a less socially condoned setting, like online, in a club, or on the street, the default lie would be to say they met at a wedding.

To our surprise we were welcomed not only by Mourad’s sweet family but also by many members of our Association. I was especially happy to see the Moroccan members after my holiday time away. The girls and I all gave each other many extra kisses on the second-kissed cheek. As we chatted Mourad’s mother and sister served us tea, followed by breads and sweets. After a few minutes they brought out many more plates of fancy cookies. Once we were all delirious with sugar and the glee of being together for the holiday, plus gorged from spending the entire day eating, the women brought out a huge pastilla, the wonderful Moroccan savory/sweet chicken, cinnamon and almond flake pastry with powdered sugar on top. Pastilla is my favorite Moroccan dish, and this was the best, most staggering pastilla I have ever had. Between bites C. Rizzi and I exclaimed about how this country is the best country ever: “The food is amazing and all it takes to be a good guest is to never stop eating!” Plus he told a killer Chuck Norris joke: Did you hear about how Chuck Norris went to Mars? That’s why there are no martians.” We ate and ate, tried in vain to come up with some non-dirty American jokes, and then I coaxed Leila to sing. I had heard that she sang at the Christmas party I missed while I was in France and that she had a beautiful voice. In a rich and spanning voice she sang one song each in French, Arabic and English. The skin on my back and my scalp nearly lit with happiness (everything is bodily lately). Then she sang many more songs in Arabic and anyone who could sing along did and everyone clapped in time. I thought of just the phrase for it at the time, something about rousing or warmth or fighting off the winter. It was all wonderful, we all glowed, Mourad’s brother played air violin.

For tonight there are blood spots and poo pellets on apartment building stairs everywhere; most of the country’s on holiday for the rest of the week; I hope to lift myself from my bed on the floor early tomorrow morning to get some work done; it’s cold in here without heat and so I’m wearing many layers and my peach and gold winter hat.

[As for France and Switzerland, how I’ve been describing the two weeks to people here is that it was grand to see my friends, it was very cold, and it was expensive. I have reflections on topics including race relations, dairy products, public displays of affection, fashion, lifestyle and standard of living, transportation, consumer culture, history and tradition, and beer]

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