Bloody Monday

The streets of Cairo ran with blood today. Literally.

Today is Eid Al-Adha, the Feast of Sacrifice. The holiday commemorates Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son on God's command. At the last minute, God stayed Abraham's hand and provided a sheep instead.

In the Islamic tradition, Abraham (Ibrahim) was asked to sacrifice his eldest son, Ishmael. The Arabs believe they are descended from Ishmael. Of course, as a Christian, I was taught that God asked for Isaac, Abraham's favorite son - and the progenitor of the Hebrews.

You see the difference, I imagine. God forbid it was actually the same son, and both the Hebrews and the Arabs are descended from the same person. But I digress.

Practically speaking, the holiday is celebrated by early morning prayers and a mass slaughter of domesticated animals. Sheep, cows, goats, camels - whatever you can afford to sacrifice. The best part, I think, is the tradition of sharing the meat - with family, friends, and the poor.

This time last year I was in Germany, so I missed witnessing the leadup to the holiday as well as the celebration itself. This year, I saw the whole deal.

About 5 days ago, I started noticing an abnormally large number of sheep on the streets of Cairo. You notice I don't say, "I saw sheep in Cairo." This would not be unusual at all. But seeing the sheep, twenty or thirty deep, all up and down the Corniche, was different - and so was seeing the sheep and the cows in my ritzy ex-pat neighborhood. Oh, and some of the sheep were painted green.

I had to curb the urge to shout from my taxi window, "What are you doing?? Don't just stand there! Run!! Fling yourselves into the Nile!! Anything!! But don't just take it!!"

I guess that's why they call 'em sheep.

Even before today, I could do the math. Step 1 : Sheep piled up outside the butcher (sorry for the fuzzy image, I was trying to walk and snap this picture)


Step 2 : Well, take a look ....


I didn't hear anything this morning, for which I was profoundly grateful. You're not supposed to kill the animals in front of each other, but, well, we're talking about a lot of animals. And amateur butchers. I even managed to avoid walking past the butcher shop by getting into a taxi right in front of my building. But we still drove past, and I watched an adult cow in its death throes, thrashing in the middle of the street.

Then I arrived at my destination. I walked around the corner, and was met by the sight of men in rubber boots and gaiters, sluicing blood and gore out of the driveway and down into the gutter.

I hitched my pant legs up (it's a celebration, a celebration), stepped over the four inches of running blood, and walked into the foyer. I probably added a few bloody footprints to the trail of gore leading into the building. I rounded the corner to walk up the stairs to the elevator.

I found three men, a stream of blood down the stairs, a bunch of tarps, and a cow's head.

"Eid mubarak," I mumbled.

The men gesticulated at me, no doubt returning my greeting, then waved me toward the elevator with a chorus of "It-faddali"s. I went on my way - and left my shoes in the hall.

In a sense, I guess it might be a good thing to make people slaughter their own meat once in awhile. You know, to reaffirm the notion that this was actually, a living, breathing animal, that suffers for my pleasure.

I had salad for lunch.