Aeed el Adha vs. American Christmas

The sheep, and occasional massive cows have taken over the streets.

The makeshift pens full of docile furry, animals with pink spray-painted stripes have been erected in almost every alleyway. Anyone will tell you, the smell of Cairo has gotten much worse this month, for this reason and because its black cloud of air pollution season (the smog literally rolls over and coats the city with this weird yellow dry fog).

A few days ago, in one of these pens in the middle of a major street, I saw a sheep sneeze, twice (this is probably the most adorable thing I have ever seen an animal do, and I felt the need to utter, "bless you" under my breath as I let out a little laugh, causing more people to think foreigners are nuts). Tonight I saw three live sheep tied to the top of the fully occupied moving taxi in front of my taxi, driving down a major street. One little kharoof (sheep in arabic) was looking straight back into my eyes, I swear.

These sheep are remarkably calm for their impending bloody mass slaughter. If they had any wits about them they would probably notice that every year sheep are taken; Maybe because none ever return, the sheep all believe their comrades have gone somewhere much more wonderful. Maybe the sheep consider it an honor to be chosen for the sacrifice of Aeed el-Adha.

Aeed el-Adha is the holiday commemorating Abraham's almost-sacrifice of his son. In the Judeo-Christian story, the son is Isaac. In the Islamic story, the son is Ishmael. The story is almost exactly the same. The tortured father climbs the mountain with his son, and is about to sacrifice him as God has requested, when God provides a sheep instead. In commemoration, every year, Muslims who can afford to should slaughter an animal. I haven't seen this day in Egypt yet, this is coming up on Monday supposedly...

As sheep and cows and their smell are ubiquitous throughout Egyptian society right now, the rich foreigner Island of Zamalak is a different story (literal Island, in the middle of the Nile, with a huge proportion of ex-pats). The smell and sight of animals hasn't quite reached this place, no one wants that there. Instead, the Christmas stores have opened. You know those creepy stores that somehow make a living only selling Christmas paraphernalia? Those actually exist in Egypt, in Zamalek. They have Christmas trees sitting out on the sidewalks. My roommate and I, perhaps a little guiltily, kinda really wanted a Christmas tree. So we took a taxi, got a fake collapsible scrawny little tree and lights for around $15, and then headed back home. We made three trips to the paper man to get green paper, then pink and blue and yellow paper and markers, then white paper. Then we decorated. We listened to Christmas music and cut out colored shapes for our tree and for our Christmas cards.

I now walk into our apartment to the sight of twinkling lights among convincing dark green plastic branches, and pomegranate like construction paper ornaments.

Being in Egypt has brought out a lot of feelings about holidays almost more than anything. Maybe this is because holidays are such a visible expression of culture and so socially engrained into our understanding of the passing of time. I have celebrated holidays here with more excitement and passion and thoughtfulness than I have had regarding them in a long time. Now as I see these two holidays, Aeed el Adha and Christmas, coinciding with each other, I can't help but be intrigued by the images.

While walking through Maasara at night, we encountered a block of the city near our family's house where the power was completely out. This meant that on the eve of Aeed al-Adha, the streets were plunged in pitch-darkness. We could hear the sounds of people and animals crowding and moving around us, but couldn't see them until they were practically in our face. This whole feeling of a living, breathing unseen city around us on the eve of a holiday was amazing. As we walked down the main street, we saw about one candle in each shop lining the road. The pharmacy, the supermarket, the cafe (where the backgammon game had been centered around this tiny candle). The tiny lights in the dark, and the coldest night I've had in Egypt yet, made sure that al-Adha eve and Christmas eve were now further tangled up in my mind.

Merriness and jolliness and excessive amounts of light and cookies and construction paper crafts don't really make any sense for Christmas if you think about it. What makes more sense to me are these pens of sheep, dwelling in their filth, stinking up the streets, about to be slaughtered, and the few solitary candles in the pitch-black darkness.

On Christmas day the trinity had decided it was best that Jesus squeeze himself through a birth canal, come out squirming, bloody and screaming into a pile of hay or some manure perhaps amid a bunch of stinky animals and the woman's terrified new husband.

My Egyptian sister asked me, on the eve of the sacrifice, "Do you know why the Muslims kill the animals?"
It told her, "yes because of Abraham and his son."
She tells me, "yes, you're clever! But do you know what else?"
"What else?" I ask.
"Its because of Jesus. Because he died, like a sheep also, to give us all life." And once again I am more surprised than I probably should be that she sees the same connections that I do.

And so, 'tis the season... for the adorable stinky sheep of Cairo.