The Eid prayer fell on Tuesday morning here in Jordan, the 24th of October. By 7:30 am all of the local mosques were packed with families celebrating the end of Ramadan, our month of daytime fasting. After the prayer and a brief sermon, 5y and I left the mosque and walked across the construction yard back to our home where wife and 11m were waiting for us. We were scheduled to leave for Hofa, the village where my father-in-law grew up. Wife's uncle would be taking us.
Hofa is a 2 hour drive north of Amman, not too far from a fairly large city called Irbid. The drive would give us an opportunity to see some of the Jordanian countryside.
It was a huge relief to get out of Amman. It really is a very large, crowded, busy city. Within 15 or 20 minutes we were enjoying the open country, scrubby hills and valleys not unlike the less developed areas of southern California's Inland Empire. Here and there we would spot Bedouin tents. We'd breeze by flocks of sheep tended by young boys on donkeys. 5y would really get excited about that.
We arrived at wife's grandma's house in Hofa just a little after 10 in the morning. People use the word "village" when talking about Hofa. When I hear "village" I think of huts. There are no huts here. It's really just a very small town. There are a number of homesteads here, small houses and a handful of animals in the yard. As far as I could tell there is only one main road. Wife's grandma's house overlooks the graveyard.
This was our first time celebrating Eid in a Muslim country, so we weren't real sure what to expect. We were met by wife's grandma, aunts, uncles, and tons of cousins. There was much squealing and kissing and hugging and shaking of hands. After several rounds of introductions, our family and a few others were divided up between two cars and we were off.
This is how Eid works in the Arab world: you visit as many relatives as you possibly can as quickly as God will allow.
Coming into contact with a traditional culture is a huge learning experience. Life's intangibles are fixed in a way that would be hard for many Americans to relate to. America is so new, only a couple of hundred years old versus the thousands of years over which time the Arabs have come to adopt their ways. So Eid goes like this:
We pull up to somebody's house. We get out. Wife and the kids are received by the ladies of the house. The rest of us (all men) are received by the men. Hugs, handshakes, kisses. Everybody sits. The host approaches each guest in turn with a teeny glass and a carafe of super hot, super bitter, super strong Turkish coffee. He pours you a shot. You swig and jiggle the little glass a bit before handing it back to the host.
I'm not sure what the glass jiggling is all about, but everybody did it. It seems to mean, "Thanks, but no more please."
After everybody's been offered their shot. The host comes around with a little candy dish. He stops at each guest, a piece of candy is taken, and then he moves on. After everybody gets their candy everybody stands for another round of hugs, kisses, and handshakes, and we're off again. I think the longest visit was maybe 10-15 minutes.
And that's exactly how it went for all 7 or so houses that we visited. What I couldn't determine was how it was decided who would visit and who would host. It seemed possible that with everybody out and eager to get their visiting done, that you'd show up at somebody's house only to find that they had gone out visiting others. In any case, I had a serious buzz going from all that coffee.
I had the drill down by the time we returned to grandma's house. In fact, shortly after we got back, everybody retired to the back of the house for I don't know what reason. I was left out front when who should come to the door but a bunch of male visitors. No problem. I hugged them, kissed them, shook their hands, invited them to sit down, poured them their shots, gave them their sweets, and sent them off.
My wife's grandmother lives on the ground floor of a two-story home. My wife's uncle, his wife and four children live upstairs. They've got about 3/4 of an acre with a number of olive trees, an herb garden, three cows, two calves, a bunch of chickens, and about six or seven sheep. Wife's uncle got the idea that he would slaughter one of his sheep for a barbecue the following day. I was invited to help.
It was late in the evening, probably around 8 or 9 pm when wife's uncle dragged a very resistant male sheep from out of it's pen and onto his back porch. The sheep was about a year old, maybe around 70 or 80 pounds. Sheep really are quite sweet and docile. He would stand still, quiet, look around a little bit. Then he would start and try to make a break for it, forcing wife's uncle to jerk him back into place.
Everything was all set. Wife's uncle asked for a knife. He swept the legs out from under the sheep so that the animal was instantly flipped onto it's side. The sheep was kicking a bit now, so it was my job to try and keep his legs under control. I was kind of laying on him.
Wife's uncle pulled the sheep's head back and with a very rapid sawing motion, the knife was pulled through the sheep's trachea. Another stroke or two, this time more laborious, and the knife was well into the sheep's neck, severing both carotid arteries. This is where things get messy. We got up off the animal and watched.
It is an awesome thing to take a life. I don't mean this in any triumphant way, but I really do think that everybody should have the experience. I'm sure you'd eat a lot less meat just because the price becomes so immediately apparent. Lots and lots of blood was spilled to put that steak on your plate. Not that meat is a bad thing, but it is serious.
Anyway, our sheep had by now arched it's nearly severed head back into a very unnatural position. There were strange noises, sucking sounds, gurgling sounds, something like a moan, "the soul, " wife's uncle whispered.
The sheep was still for several moments when suddenly there came a flurry of kicks. I understand that there are reflexive movements that can come on some time after death. I remember after slaughtering a sheep in commemoration of my first daughter's birth, that even after the meat was all chopped up into little pieces, the individual pieces would jerk and shimmy. Weird.
It was now time to dress our sheep. The head was removed and a hook run through near what I guess would be the sheep's ankle. He was hoisted up to allow the remainder of the blood to drain. Wife's uncle and his wife got to work.
Here I'll say a bit about village women. Perhaps you fancy yourself a hard worker. Maybe you are, but here's a breakdown of village woman's day. You make the comparison:
Wake up and milk the cows. Get the kids up and make breakfast. Clean up and get started with preparations for lunch. Get started? Yup, because you've got bread to bake, and yogurt to make with all that fresh milk you pulled. Woops- the cows are acting up! They're busting up the walls outside (this happened)! Corral the cows. Hubby's decided to slaughter a sheep. Dress it, chop it up, and clean up the mess. This means hands-and-knees scrubbing so the blood doesn't set in the concrete. Lunch time! Lay it out, clean it up. Check the chickens for eggs. Get started with dinner. Sun's setting- time to milk the cows again! Get the house in order. Serve dinner. Clean up. Get the kids off to bed. Now do this without a washing machine, without a dishwasher, with only spotty electricity, and rationed water. Hard work, but the people seemed content, the ladies talking and laughing while busy with their chores.
It was pretty late by the time we were done chopping up our sheep. Our family tried to get some rest, but with the exception of 5y, we were up all night. Country living has some serious drawbacks, not the least of which are the mosquitoes. It was crazy, beyond belief. We felt them all over us, buzzing like dental instruments in our ears. The kids got it the worst. By the time morning came they both looked like teenagers on a steady diet of deep-fried chocolate.
The day after our slaughter we had a huge barbecue. This was much closer to a campfire experience than a backyard Weber deal. They set these little metal troughs in the dirt and filled them with twigs from around the yard. They got that going and then threw in some heavy wood chips and fanned up a good flame. Seated on the ground a few feet away from the troughs were a bunch of ladies chopping vegetables and sliding chunks of meat and fat onto skewers. Outstanding sheep kabobs! Wife doesn't eat sheep, but she was loving this. So were the kids.
A great meal, a great time, al'hamdu'lillah.