Reason #45 that I love working at AIS/D: we have yet ANOTHER break for the Thanksgiving/Eid Mubarak holiday, which both happened to be around the same time this year. We have had a nice long break every month since school began, which has been much needed and amazing! We decided to stay in Dhaka for this one and "save money," which hasn't worked out all that well but Christmas break is right around the corner on the 16th of December and we also wanted to see everything go down for this second Eid.
This marked my first Thanksgiving away from my family and although this was very difficult for me because Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday the 26th was a very busy day and it ended up being a lot of fun. We went to a rooftop dinner at night with good ole American traditional food-mac n cheese, mashed potatos, cranberry sauce and of course turkey followed by all kinds of pies. Banani decorators set everything up with beautiful twinkle lights all around the rooftop and did this whole table spread-it looked awesome. Lots of wine and some new people to meet-all of Kasey's NGO friends so that was cool.
Saturday the 28th was the day of Eid this year. The first Eid is the one after Ramadan where you give presents and this Eid is where you slaughter animals to symbolize Abraham being willing to sacrifice his son. It is a big deal to Muslims here-they save up money all year or pool their money with the rest of their family or neighbors and buy whatever lifestock they can afford. The really rich will buy camels. Most people get either cows or goats. Some people buy local Bangladeshi cows and more wealthy people import them from India and Pakistan-these cows have been force-fed and are ginormous!
The animals are chained up outside the houses for days in advance as a kind of status symbol and are decorated with these shiny wreaths and headdresses. One house on the way to school had 7 huge cows chained up outside for 3 days in advance! They bring the animals into the city in trucks and have lifestock auctions set up along the motorways. There was one near us that went on all night long for 3 or 4 nights prior to Eid with some guy yelling into his megaphone in Bangla, turning me into an insomniac. Apparently Muslims don't value sleep.
The morning of Eid all the Muslims went to Mosque around 8:30 and all the men dress in white and wear punjabis on their heads. When they were finished, the slaughtering began. Typically the oldest male has the honor of slitting the throat of the animal. Butchers then come around all day long to do the actual butchering. There were men walking around all day with these humongous knives. They move from house to house butchering the animals so the killing lasts from morning until mid afternoon pretty much. Islam says that you keep one third for yourself and your family, give one third to the mosque, and one third to the poor.
Because of this, there were tons and tons of beggars everywhere because we live in an area with more wealthy Bangladeshis. The street that I walk to get to school everyday was completely packed with beggars because of that one house with seven cows. All the beggars walk around with these dripping bags of animal parts to take back to their respective villages.
They don't waste any part of the animal and all day long they had spread out tarps and blankets in almost empty parking garages or the side of streets or any open areas and were hacking up meat into small pieces with hammers and knives. They strip the hides and give them to the tanneries. They really don't waste any part of the animals.
Donna and I walked to our friend's house for some tea and leftover Thanksgiving apple pie at around 11. As we walked along Gulshan lake, blood from all the slaughtering poured into it, coloring the murky puke green lake bright red. Pools of blood formed along roadsides and in potholes. Although it was incredibly strange to see all this livestock be slaughtered in a city setting with high rises and cars rolling by, I thought they were very efficient and had the system down to a calculated science. They didn't waste and they didn't leave anything behind. When we woke up the following morning, it was almost like it hadn't happened-there were only a few telltale signs that a massive slaughter had happened the day before.
Donna and I had been invited by our driver that the school had given us the first 2 weeks of school, Ansary, to his "village" for Eid lunch at 2pm. He was really excited to have us there and so proud to cook us this meal and for us to meet his family and see where he lives. He had drawn me a map that looked really simple in theory but turned out not to be. As we drove down the main road there were stacks and stacks of raw cow hides that had been stripped from the innards and literal meat wagons-Bicycle- pulled flat beds with hides and meat parts stacked high. Everyone was in a good mood and happy and feasting.
After driving around confused for about 40 minutes we finally got to where we needed to go, which was just across the Rampura bridge. Ansary met us on the main road and then we all drove together through muddy back roads that got narrower and narrower to his simple apartment building. There we met his wife, his older son who will be a 9th grader, and his younger son who was 2. The older one was so well behaved and nice and spoke really good English and the younger one was mischievous and cheeky. He fell in love with Donna's camera and just wanted to have his picture taken the whole time.
Ansary's wife served delicious beef curry and white rice and cucumber slices. We started the meal with sweet noodles in a rice, milk pudding type thing. I thought it was interesting how they began the meal with something sweet rather than ending it with that. Donna ate meat for the first time in 16 years because she felt bad refusing. Ansary's son was nice enough to show us the cow that it came from off of his MP3 that could record video-it was a bull who had been rather difficult and put up quite a fight. How nice of him to show us. The meat was tasty but I kept getting visions of the cows I'd seen with their shiny headdresses chained up. We didn't eat all together, because this is not their custom. Ansary, Donna, and I ate first, then his wife, and then his sons ate. I wished we could all have enjoyed it together. Afterward, they served delicious milky chai tea. It is real Chai-not the crap that's called Chai at Starbucks. It was so good. I was so happy that we had gone because you could tell how proud Ansary was to serve us a meal and have us at his home. Over and over again I am reminded how generous and truly kind the Bangladeshi people are. They are very proud of their customs and are excited what little they may have with you.
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