Festival of Sacrifice

I meant to have this post up sooner but the internet at my house has decided since everyone else is on break it needs to be too. So why are we on break this week? Well if you don’t live in a Muslim country, I wouldn’t expect you to know why.This past week was the celebration of Eid al-Adha. If you have never heard of this holiday don't feel bad. Until I came here neither did I, much to the surprise of my English students who could not believe that Eid is not celebrated in the US. I'm sure it is celebrated but I have never lived in a community where it was either celebrated or even talked about.

The word Eid means “solemn festival” and there is an Eid to celebrate the end of two of the Five Pillars. At the end of Ramadan, Eid al-Fitar is a week long celebration of the end of the fasting season that is full of family visits and parties. Eid al-Adha marks the end of the Hajj. Hajj is the Pilgrimage to Mecca which all Muslims must complete at some point in their lives. Some people who do not go on Hajj will fast to show solidarity and support of their fellow Muslims who are. This particular Eid is the “festival of sacrifice” and it lives up to its name. All the traditions involved in the Hajj are done in remembrance and celebration of the prophet Ibrahim. The Eid is a continuation of this: it is a time when Muslims remember how Ibrahim was commanded by Allah to sacrifice his son. Because of his immense faith, Ibrahim submitted to the will of Allah but instead of having Ibrahim sacrifice his son, Allah mercifully provided a sheep as a substitutionary sacrifice. This story is recorded in the Quran, Sura 37 As-Saffat (Those Who Set the Ranks).

The celebration of this holiday includes the sacrificing of an animal which symbolizes the ram that Ibrahim sacrificed in place of his son. Some families celebrate together by purchasing a sheep or another acceptable animal and slaughtering it early in the morning on the first day of Eid. After the first call to prayer Tuesday morning, for an hour a chant went out over the speakers of the mosques during which time the animals were slaughtered and the sacrifices were offered. Unlike normal calls to prayer, this hour-long call was made by a congregation that included children instead of an individual. The sacrificial animals may be sheep, cows, goats, buffalo or camels. In some societies it is acceptable to offer chickens. Each animal is killed with the intention of being eaten. Families will make appointments with a local butcher for him to come to their house and kill the animal for them. The animal is then divided up into three parts: one part for the close family, one part for the extended family or family members who come to visit for the holiday, and one part for the poor. Some families choose to purchase prepared animals from the butcher instead. The holiday itself is only two days long but most people take the whole week off for traveling and parties. I'm sorry if this post seems dry but I can only give you a third party's perspective since I did not participate in this holiday nor was I invited to the house of someone who did.

Two more posts are in the works and inshallah they will be up this week. Happy weekend!

What's been happening?

My updates have not been exactly timely, so now I will fill you all in on what's been happening in my corner of the world.

There are two new interns living with Kara and I. Becca and Hailey are working to finish their senior year at university and decided to spend a semester abroad to fulfill their internship requirements. Props to them for keeping up with GC work, Souk by the Sea prep, teaching English and a full semester of classes online. Becca is keeping a photo blog that I listed the link to on the sidebar. We also have a new friend named Kelsey working with us in the Center. She is from Canada here to do language study and learn more about the culture.

We are back to working at Green Creations five days a week but I am only there three days. On mornings when I'm at GC, I split my time between updating the social media for GC and Souk, trying to get the word out online about our products and subscription service, and spending time with the ladies. Around 10:30 each morning the ladies break from whatever they're working on and have breakfast. Some mornings they bring bread, olives, pickles, tomatoes, cheese, humus or whatever they are hungry for. I join them some mornings to sit, share their food and listen to their conversations. My Arabic is as such that I can sometimes follow their conversations but I cannot contribute much. My friends Jumana and Manal speak English and will translate for me if I need them to. Tuesday mornings, Hailey and I join the aerobic classes at the Life Center called Well Fit. There are two classes each lasting for about an hour each that feature anything from Zumba  to belly dancing to Yoga. The two of us try to keep up without running into any of the ladies. I'm sure I look less than graceful but it's the type of good workout I feel for two days and I am thankful for it. Wednesdays are my days off. The only thing I have on these days is my Arabic lesson at noon and the rest of the day I leave open for grocery runs, visits or reading. Teaching English continues on three nights a week. This time I have a few more ladies but my class is still predominantly male. We have only two classes left before graduation this coming Thursday. Then we have a week long break for Eid al Adha then classes resume to finish the book we're working through. (More on Eid what the time comes).

So that's my weekly schedule. Other than this I've been working on getting into the community more. Rana, my Arabic teacher and Arab mama, took me to get my hair cut. We walked into what looked like an apartment building and got into the elevator with three Philippino women. Elevators here are about 4x4 mirrored boxes that seem to run on the prayers of those who use them. When the elevator doors closed we were plunged into darkness. The light bulb had burnt out some time ago but no one had bothered to change it. So the five of us stood in the dark until we reached our floor. Rana must have noticed I was a little uneasy because when we got out of the elevator she said "We're alright" and we were. The hair salon was like any other hair salon, the only differences were everyone was speaking in Arabic and there was some strange Asian soap opera on the TV while we waited. When Rana's hairdresser was free, Rana explained to her what I wanted and we got started. First one girl started wetting down my hair with a spray bottle which she had to refill half way through because my hair is so thick. Once my head was properly saturated, she started working a comb through my hair. By this time Rana and her hairdresser had finished talking and her hairdresser grabbed a brush to join the assault on my scalp. While this was happening Rana started giving her hairdresser a hard time saying that when she cut Rana's hair a few days earlier she had left one side longer than the other. So she quit brushing my hair for a minute to even out Rana's hair, it was at this time that I realized the first girl had disappeared. After Rana was satisfied, she turned her attention back to me. All this time I'm tripping over my Arabic and praying that Rana explained what I wanted them to do. When she had finished, she did not just want to dry my hair but said it needed styled. A third girl took over from here and curled my hair. Maybe some men reading this won't understand why getting your hair cut in a place where you don't speak the language is a big deal but I assure you it is.

If you remember, I had only one girl in my English class last term: Sojoud. This term Sojoud is in another class and her sister Aya is in Hailey's class. We found out they live across the street from us and they along with their mother, Asma, and younger sisters have been to our house where they did henna and taught us traditional Jordanian dance, Debka. Last Saturday they suggested we all go to the beach. Sojoud ended up not being able to come but Asma came along with her other two younger daughters. Asma's youngest daughter, Heba, has down-syndrome which is something that is usually viewed as shameful. In a culture where appearance is everything and shame and honor play into every aspect of life, children of any handicap are often hidden away from the public eye. Asma and her husband have different views on this subject. They take Heba to special classes in town and on outings such as our beach adventure.  We left very early in the morning to avoid the crowds that would come in the afternoon and evening to the beach. When we got there, we sat under an umbrella and ate hummus and falafel for breakfast. After we finished, we made our way into the water...which was freezing. I know it never gets cold here but this morning the wind was blowing and the temperature of the water caused us to stiffly and slowly walk into the surf. Asma did not mind at all and dove in out swimming all of us. She was fully covered in the full black abaya and white hijab but she did not seem to be weighed down at all by her clothing. We swam in the Sea and walked up and down the shoreline until noon then we packed up to head home. I had driven our big van because we could not all fit in Asma's car. Seeing the van, Heba adamantly requested that she ride in the "bus" to go home.

I've been on my first house visit by myself. One of my English students, also named Jumana but a different Jumana, invited me to her house for a meal. Monday after GC and Arabic, she had me call her as I got into a taxi so that she could give the driver directions to her house. He got lost along the way so I had to call her twice but all in all I did get to her place alright. Since this was our first visit and we were going to eat, I brought two bottles of pop to have with our lunch as my gift. I came in and after a quick hello, her husband left us to our visit. Jumana lives with her husband and three children: two daughters Sarah 11 and Bushra 5, and one son Abdullah 9. She and I chatted as she finished making lunch and we waited for her two oldest children to come home from school. Shortly after Sarah and Abdullah came home, Jumana's mother also came over. Jumana said that she had forgotten to tell her mother that I was coming and her mother had prepared lunch for Jumana's children. Jumana herself made oozy (rice with vegetables), chicken, spaghetti and salad. Her mother made a dish of eggplant and meat with a tomato sauce. Sorry, I can't remember what it was called. Jumana filled my plate with oozy and spaghetti and gave me half a chicken to eat. Because I'm American they took pity on me and gave me a fork and knife to use with my spoon. The six of us ate and talked about ourselves and our families. Jumana's mother is a retired headmistress of a school here and her father runs the Bedouin Gardens Hotel and Restaurant out near the sea. They have six daughters and one son. Jumana has a twin sister who lives in America now with her husband and children. Jumana's mother could not stay long after we finished eating and after she left Jumana and I looked at photo albums of her wedding, all of her sisters' weddings, her honeymoon in Istanbul and her children as babies. After the pictures, Sarah showed me her English book from school, Abdullah showed me how to do handstands and Bushra played hide and seek with me. We hung out for five hours and she didn't understand why I needed to leave so soon.

It's been really encouraging and fun to be making new friendships and getting to see how different people live here. Hopefully the future is filled with more visits and more punctual blog posts about them.