Cheesin' with Assia before the sheep died

This last monday was Eid al-Adha (Eid al-Kebir), meaning “Holiday of the Sacrifice” which commemorates the story of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son for God. It’s the biggest holiday of the year, and every family slaughters a sheep in celebration. To read about last year, click here. The only thing of note this year that I didn’t cover last year is the fact that this year marks the second annual Caity-Assia Eid extravaganza!!!  Assia (my 3-and-a-half-year-old best buddy in the village) and I hang out quite a bit on any given day of the year, but on Eid we are an unlikely, yet well-matched pair. She is not put to use in the kitchen due to her lack of the fine motor skills to properly skin potatoes, cut up stomach, singe fur off of sheep heads, whip up tea in the blink of an eye and dice tomatoes at warp-speed. I mean, come on… she’s only 3 and a half. That excuse unfortunately doesn’t stand for me…. being 24 and a half and the oldest  girl in the house (including two of my married host sisters, one of whom also just became a mother). Okay, so i peel tomatoes at a snail’s pace and hold everyone back agonizing over the right amount of tea to put in different sized kettles…. it’s stressful! And why can’t we just eat the tomato skin?

The point is, that last year the two of us fell into each other’s company by chance, and whiled away the day playing around, breaking a frisbee in the process, and ended up watching Tom and Jerry cartoons most of the afternoon, if I remember correctly. THIS YEAR, however…. fully aware of my unchanged status as “slow” in the kitchen, I came prepared. I had crayons, and we drew. And we drew. Then there was some fighting over crayons and only a few tears, followed by apologies and hugs and lessons about sharing. And then we drew a little bit more. My favorite is pictured below…. the dead sheep is my representation of the events of the day… while Assia, approaching the project from a more subtle perspective, opted for a more modern presentation.

Had we been allowed to help cook, these masterpieces would never have been created... and perhaps masterpieces of a culinary nature might have been thwarted... the world is as it should be.

Eid Mubarek Said!!!

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