My Semester in Morocco: True Life: I just witnessed 2 sheep and a goat getting slaughtered… in my house.

goat goin down

mmm..delishhh

EID MUBARAK SAID! Happy Eid! I just witnessed one of the most brutal, horrifying things…ever. I woke up early this morning to lots of music and my family running around getting ready for the Eid (holiday). I went upstairs only to find two sheep and a goat tied up on our deck. They, just like me, had no idea what we were in for. Then some cousins came over, we all ate a delicious breakfast filled with cookies and cakes and pasteries..and then the slaughtering began. My host dad went first. He took his sheep, and slowly took his knife and cut deep into the sheep’s throat. We watched the sheep seize as blood spurted out every which way across the porch. It took about 10 minutes for the sheep to actually die, aided with some deeper cutting and twisting of the head. Then once he had the head off and it was officially dead, my host uncle helped my host dad hang the sheep. They then began to cut off the limbs, one by one. After all of the limbs were off they begun to cut off the skin, which took the longest amount of time. Oussama, my host brother helped my dad while my uncle began to slaughter the second sheep. Same deal, I have never seen so much blood in my life (except maybe on Grey’s Anatomy)! Meanwhile, a bunch of the little boys and I “played” with the goat on the next deck; although in reality, they were torturing this goat so much I wondered if we killed it before the slaughtering even began! We had the goat on a leash and they were pulling it around and picking it up and throwing it to each other! In the meantime, downstairs the men were still hard at work. Once all of the skin was off, the men began to cut into the insides. I saw more organs … it was disgusting. At this point I was beginning to get a little nauseous. My host uncle thought the whole thing was hilarious and even took out a little brown ball from the inside of his sheep and said “Look, chocolate!” The two sheep’s took at least two hours to fully slaughter. Afterwards, the two men moved on to the goat, which by this point we had named “Atrus” (we spent the majority of the time playing with it all morning, so we thought it deserved a name). The goat, which was much smaller, did not take as long to kill; but the process was just as brutal. Usually we just have sheep but their grandmother has cholesterol issues and the sheep is too fattening for her… thus the goat. I now have three animal heads staring at me, along with all of their limbs hanging up on our deck. Next to the limbs is a bucket of guts. It is quite the sight. The women on the other hand spent the majority of the morning cleaning up the blood on the floor. They mopped and scrubbed until the floor was as good as new. Later, my uncle began to barbeque the heads. I was informed that we had the stomach today, we eat head couscous tomorrow, shoulders Friday, and slowly but surely we will finish off these animals. Today’s lunch consisted of Brochettes (lamb skewers) with the fat wrapped around them for extra good flavoring (they told me not to eat the fat..thank god). To go along with our brochettes we had an assortment of other dishes such as rice and corn, eggplant, green pepper dip, etc. Lunch was delicious, so I just tried to ignore the fact that only and hour or two earlier I had been watching this sheep get slaughtered!