a stranger: eid in marrakesh

it hasn't been but a few days since i last walked the streets of marrakesh during the holy day but the sights and smells of that day are still quite fresh in my mind. 

the day began with some tea and bread atop the hostel roof terrace. junice and i met up with stephanie and edith, two french girls we had the pleasure of befriending over the weekend. we quickly stuffed our faces with bread dipped in fresh apricot marmalade and walked downstairs. 

as we meandered through the dusty streets, i noticed something strange. the daily buzz of running children, motorcycle engines, local haggling, all of it was non-existent. the streets were all filled with an eerie calm. i looked at the time and it was 10:07am, which meant that the residents of marrakesh had already begun the slaughter. i'm not sure what exactly i was expecting, it was all just very strange.

by the time we got to souks market and medina square, we found it to be practically empty. no henna tattoo artists, no snake charmers, no monkey wranglers, all were gone for eid. we kept walking and spoke with a man we had met the previous night while i was getting my beard trimmed (an experience in it of itself). he recommended we check the tombs next to the palace walls, or something like that. we walked towards the direction he pointed us but when we got there we found it to be closed. 

it was a bummer at first, but we kept walking, aimlessly really. after a few beats though, we found ourselves in small corridors deep inside the unknown neighborhoods. this is the part where things really began to get interesting. 

as we walked through these long skinny corridors the light and mood of the place began to change. a teenager walk outside with a basket filled with freshly stripped sheep skin, wool intact; they were practically sweaters. he gave us a kind smile and quickly walked past us and headed to God knows where. i looked at the girls and even though they didn't really want to verbalize it, they knew what was up. deeper and deeper into this catacomb, we would see the same thing, but then it changed from sheepskins to stomachs, then limbs and eventually heads. 

from the corner of my eyes i would see doors opening and quickly closing as we walked past by them. "what was behind them!" was all i kept asking myself. my curiosity burned until i finally saw an opening. a little girl with mom opened a door and were about to quickly close it but i smiled, waived and yelled "salaam!" the mother slowly opened the door and returned the greeting. behind her, hanging from the roof, the fresh carcass of a naked sheep hung freely. the husband was right next to it and he waived at me with his butchers knife. i asked for permission to take a picture and he smiled and said of course. the girls were behind me the whole time and they were troopers, mostly. edith was probably the most visibly affected by the sight of the hanging carcass. 

we began to move our feet again. the streets now began to come alive as bikes quickly and sometimes dangerously zoomed by us as they carried their precious cargo of random sheep flesh - one bike actually crashed head on with a french or spanish woman. she was ok i think - outside homes teenage boys pulled out wood and old metal mattress frames and other types of metal amalgamations. soon after this was when the heads began to show up. once the fire was going, homes would bring out the heads of their former livestock and began placing them on the street fires to cook. it was definitely a sight to see. we came across a group of teenagers who were in charge of one of the many fires and asked them if we could take pictures, they said sure. 

we came across more of these as we walked and edith and stephanie's curiosity of the burning heads led us to ask a group of both teenagers and elders exactly whay they did with the heads. in a nutshell, this is what they told us: 

we cook the head, we crack the head, we eat the brains, we eat the tongue, and we eat whatever is in the middle. 

sounded wonderful to me

it was barely one in the afternoon when we got back to our hostel. everything was pretty much closed in marrakesh so i went to my room, laid in bed and reflected on the events that had just transpired. 

and i continue to still do so