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Eid al Adha in Morocco

My Scholarship entry - A 'place' I have visited

The head of the ram was set aside next to an extra glass of orange soda while the men skinned and prepared the carcass.

MOROCCO | Wednesday, 12 December 2012 | Views [291] | View Larger Image

The head of the ram was set aside next to an extra glass of orange soda while the men skinned and prepared the carcass.

The sacrifice occurred on the terrace of our house in Rabat, just as the rain clouds broke and the sun emerged. Here, my host mother and sister Khadija help the butchers hang up the body before disembowelment.

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During the day of the Eid, neighborhood boys congregate in the streets of the medina (old city) to roast ram heads on bonfires built out of bed frames and wooden crates. This street, usually crowded with goods and shoppers, becomes an apocalyptic landscape. Smoke rises from bonfires on the unnaturally empty and boarded up street, while gangs of teenage boys compare the size of their ram’s horns and poke at the heads roasting in the fire. This boy inspects his charred ram head, perhaps imagining the taste of the brains that will show up in the couscous the next day.

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