<p>You asked for it!</p>
<p>Last Friday was Aid El Kabir, and I awoke to the sound of bleating sheep all throughout the city. The Aid (or festival) remembers when Abraham did not kill his son Isaac (but totally would have ) and instead killed a ram. And how does Morocco celebrate this story? Everyone who can afford to, and some people who can’t, buy a ram, bring it home, sharpen some knives, then slit the ram’s throat in the comfort of the own home. Throughout the week, I skirted past rams in carts, rams on donkeys, rams being carried by guys on motorbikes. Everywhere I went, I could hear sheep moored on the roofs of the city. Sometime during breakfast on that Friday, however, the tone of the bleating changed, and the citywide slaughter commenced.</p>
<p>Zac and I exited our place of stay, and wandered around the nearly vacant streets. After so many days of consecutive urban pandemonium, the contrast between Thursday and Friday was intense. The only activity were the bonfires set up all throughout Marrakech, staffed by the neighborhood kids. On the fires sat old metal mattress springs, and on those sat the heads of the rams. Many many heads, roasting away, charring black in the flames. Occasionally, someone would pull a head out of the fire, and wail away at it with an ax to either split it in twain (and eat the brains) or render the horns clear of the skull. Mixed in with the smell of cooking mutton was a palpable feeling of jubilation. Everyone smiled at me all day long.</p>
<p>Among the many distinct things I saw, the Aid was someone REALLY different.</p>