Aid Moubarak Said

It’s a cold, crisp morning and all the streets are eerily deserted. It had been raining all night, leaving a moistness in the air. I arrive at the farm before nine and join the family as they finish their modest breakfast. We proceed outside and Rashid grabs the fully-grown sheep by its horns, pulling it out of its pen. He leads it over to the patio in front of the house and knocks it on its side, asking me to hold its legs down as the year-old sheep struggles to stand up. Before I know what is happening, a Moroccan man hired just for the occasion comes over with a knife, mutters a one-word prayer, and cuts the sheep’s throat. I struggle to hold it down as it fights frantically. After 45 seconds, it lays still, with a pool of blood spread across the patio.

Next we hang it by its hind legs and skin it. After the skin and head are removed, Rashid cuts into the abdomen and takes out the stomach, intestines, liver, kidneys, heart, and other organs. He cuts quickly and deftly, all-the-while with a cigarette casually hanging from his mouth. The whole process takes about an hour. Afterwards we build a small fire to cook the head and the two front feet while the women empty the contents of the stomach and clean it for cooking. While the stomach is cooking, we make shish kebabs of liver wrapped in dried intestinal fat, cooking them over a smoky fire along with the heart and kidneys. Nothing is wasted.

It’s sacrificed for Aid, the most sacred holiday in the Muslim calendar and similar in importance to our Christmas. It’s a celebration I don’t think westerners can understand when taken out of context. Each family that can afford it buys a sheep and sacrifices it. On the day of the sacrifice, each family eats the stomach, kidneys, heart and liver, and sometimes the brain and tongue. On the following day it’s okay to eat the meat, however each family is supposed to give to the poor first.

As I sit around the table sharing sheep stomach with a Moroccan family, I realize how far I’ve come since I arrived in this country barely three months ago. I was squeamish just walking through the meat market, and now, three months later, I’m helping to butcher a sheep. The whole process never disgusted me. It just made me more grateful for the meat I do eat. And after seeing it die, I ate the stomach, kidney, heart and liver gladly. I felt like I would be dishonoring the sheep if I didn't eat everything. Aid Moubarak Said.