Eid Mubarak!

Word 2003 doesn’t recognize the word Eid and marks it red even its one of the main holidays for Muslim society.

Eid in Pakistan started today :-) it’s the second Eid this year (first one was in October). I did morning exercises on the roof, ironed my new shalwar kameez, agreed on final celebration plan with Hassaan, closed laptop and went downstairs...

In the night before Eid people usually go for last minute shopping (churiya – bangles, clothes) and for putting mendi on hands. So we did take the opportunity to become more Pakistani :)

After we had finished with shopping, we went to the house of one of new AIESEC members, Hassaan, to celebrate Eid with his family. We all were extremely happy with such an invitation from Hassaan: what else can the foreigner in Pakistan dream about on Eid?! :) yet honestly I was not surprised – the hospitality of Pakistanis is something that I have never ever experienced before!

With our chand raat shopping we were late for a dinner, but it was very good anyways :)

Some games after food... And me and Jana went to sleep earlier than others – next day was expected to start at 7.30am.

When we woke up in the morning, men were already out for morning prayers. Women can go there as well, but they usually prefer staying at home. While men were gone, we got dressed in our made-for-Eid clothes and went to see the sacrifice of the animals…

Oh this is an interesting story :) Once upon a time (loooong time ago), God gave a son to Prophet Ibrahim when the Prophet was 70 years old. God did this to show that He exists and help people who have faith. 9 years passed, son became a young man, and God told The Prophet that if he’d got faith, he’d need to sacrifice his son by killing him. Many people asked Ibrahim not to follow these instructions, but his beliefs were so strong that he went with his son to a far away place, covered own yes and put the knife up in the air… When Ibrahim touched the body with a knife, took the scarf off and saw that his son was standing alive right near him, and there was a lamb that was killed. The reason is that God intervened and instead provided a lamb as the sacrifice. This is why today all over the world Muslims who have the means to, sacrifice an animal (usually a goat or a sheep), as a reminder of Ibrahim's obedience to God. The meat is then shared out with family, friends (Muslims or non-Muslims), as well as the poor members of the community.

I was very surprised to find out that Muslims usually buy an animal in advance, play with them, care about them, try to connect, and when they eventually start loving this animal, they need to kill it. The rational behind this is that Muslim should sacrifice the loved ones for obedience to God. God gives, God takes away…

So coming back to what happened in the morning today…

Everyone went on the street to see how people sacrifice goats and cows. When I came one cow was already lieing on the ground, and two goats were about to be sacrificed.

It’s definitely not an easy thing to watch… I could barely see it at first…

Yet after two goats I even went to see the same processes with a cow… Cow is obviously a lot bigger than a goat, so it’s tough to make it patient in order to cut the throat properly. Only professional can deal with a cow. A man takes a rope, puts it across legs of a cow and makes it lye on the ground until it gets calm. After that he takes a knife, finds the right place and cuts the vein.

My Pakistani friends told me that this vein connects brain and body thus cutting the vein the one cuts this connection, and an animal doesn’t feel anything.

Wanna see how the process goes? No way, that I will upload it here, pictures are more than enough for now :)))

Sacrifice of the animal is the main thing during Eid. Having experienced this, we went… to have breakfast :S Food as usual is amazing! Chken biryani, liver, kheer and my favorite paratha! Mmm!!! The rest of the day was long and lazy – I haven’t had similar kind of rest for a looong time, exactly what I needed!

Yeah, experiencing Pakistan is NOT an easy thing :-) but... so much fun!