The most striking images so far...

I've been pondering a way of successfully blogging about this weekend's events, and I have decided to describe it to you to the best of my ability, with complete honesty about my trepidations.

My concern is in the over-empahsis of traditions that are foreign in our culture, and highly ritualistic in nature. I fear painting a picture of the people amongst whom I live that turns you who may be reading my blog away from them, and away from seeing the compassion and hospitality with which they live their lives, and the common ground that we share.

Were tourists to be in my country on Saturday, they may have been quite shocked. This was the Eid Kabir, the "big feast," and the biggest of all Muslim holidays. It commemorates the time at which Abraham at the last minute did not sacrifice Ishmael, but instead killed a sheep. Every year, many families in my country commemorate this occurance by sacrificing a sheep. The theology behind it seems fairly complex, in that most of the Muslims I have spoken with have explained it slightly differently. To some, it signifies obediance to Allah. To others, it is the cleansing of sin. The sheep is sacificed, and the skin used for rugs and clothing, the organs made into dishes, some of the meat eaten, and the rest given to the poor.

Now that you understand that this tradition has an origin based in a very relatable aspect of faith, and that the outcome is one of generosity and prosperity and wastelessness, let me describe the scenes of the weekend.

I spent the weekend in Chefchaouen, a town whose name means "see the mountains." The city is mostly a walled Medina like Fes, so the city is closely crowded together in one concentrated area with no suburbs. Did you know suburbs were an American phenomena? I always assumed all cities had them, but many cities here are closely gathered around one point, and then they stop. It reminds me of the old caravan circles of the westward-bound settlers of America.

Chefchaouen is painted blue. It used to be green, because green is the colour of Islam, but the large influx of Jewish refugees who took over the town in the middle ages sometime painted over the green of Islam with their own blue. The town was left this way because it is so distinctive. The whole city is red clay, whitewashed, and painted periwinkle or cerulean blue. During my late-night walk on Friday, I saw three different groups of 1-4 women outside (around midnight) with sponges tied to sticks to scrub over the walls with blue paint by moonlight.

On Saturday, the streets of the blue city ran with red blood. The rivulets of red pooling down the steep mountainside between the cobblestones, ofsetting the blue of the rest of the town... unforgettable.

Each family sacrificed their sheep with the gathering of the family outside after morning prayers, and slit the throat. They skinned it, washed the organs, and burned the heads. For the rest of the day, the streets were dappled with makeshift wire campfire contraptions supporting sheep heads. There was a very distinctive smell, and the air was clouded with smoke.

Amina invited me to feast at her house the next day, and her family prepared an amazing lamb and prune tagine. She showed me the remains, what was essentially a skeleton, of her family's sheep, hanging from the doorframe leading from the kitchen to the courtyard.

I do not want this experience to overly emphasize the "us and them" aspect of the culture in which I live. I think the most important aspect of loving others is finding the common ground, and the fact that it is present in all - we all have more in common than we have apart. This particular experience, however, made me extraordinarily grateful for the Truth that I have managed to find.