The Sunrise

A few days ago, I woke up around 5:30 and couldn't sleep. Many mornings I awake to the call to prayer or even pigeons cooing on my window sill, but that wasn't the case this time around. Sometimes on the weekends, the noisy aftermath of all-night weddings might wrench me from my slumber. But that wasn't the case this time. There are usually no weddings on Thursday nights and certainly not the week of Eid al Kabir.

I may not have known why I woke up, but I did know what to do with my time. I sat up in bed and started reading.

An hour later, it was becoming clear that I wasn't going to fall back to sleep. So I made myself some coffee and a bowl of cereal. I sat down on the couch near the southward-facing window. I turned on a light to read while I ate, but by the time I had finished my cereal, the artificial light was becoming increasingly unnecessary.

I stood gazing out of our 7th floor window at the sky. Some taller buildings were blocking my view of the horizon, but I could tell the sunrise was on its way. The sky above the buildings had shaded from the black of night to a magnificently dark blue, and the clouds had emerged from the darkness as palettes of pastels.

I sipped my coffee and watched from my window until all the colors had resolved to the white and blue of day.

Further Notes on Eid al Kabir

I've continued to ask a number of my Moroccan friends and students about the upcoming Eid al Kabir holiday. Yesterday, for instance, only 5 of my 14 students showed up for class. So, rather than pursuing the lesson I had planned, I led the group in a discussion about the holiday, working on the near future ('I'm going to',....'then my family's going to...', 'next we're going to...", etc.)

For Christians encountering the Eid al Adha, the other name for Eid al Kabir, we might wonder why an animal sacrifice is necessary. In Christian theology, the crucifixion of Jesus was a once for all sort of sacrifice that makes further atonement by animal death unnecessary.

However, the most common explanations for the holiday, as I've briefly outlined before, involve aspects other than atonement. Particularly, Moroccans have mentioned 1) remembering Abraham's unquestioning obedience to God, 2) spending time with family, and 3) social solidarity.

In terms of family togetherness, the holiday is a lot like Thanksgiving and Christmas all wrapped up into one. People travel to be with their extended family, often the only time of the year, and they kill an animal and eat it in every imaginable way. After the meal, visits to family and friends in the city take up much of the following few days. For most people, it seems this togetherness is the real point. Theological abstraction is always harder to grasp, I think, than the tangible reality of being with loved ones.

As for social solidarity, Muslims are commanded in the Sunna to give 1/3 of their meat to the poor of society. Sometimes, richer Muslims will even buy whole sheep for poorer families.

But family togetherness and social solidarity aside, that still leaves the question: Why kill a sheep? Why use the most universal act for appeasing God's anger to accomplish these other goals? The way it has been represented to me here puts the main emphasis on the commemoration of Abraham's obedience in his willingness to sacrifice his son out of obedience to God, and not on an attempt to appease God's righteous anger.

Islam's insistence emphasis on submission to God is demonstrated quite powerfully in the story. Abraham submits obediently to God's command to sacrifice his son, despite his reservations. When God sees that Abraham is faithful, he stops him and provides a sheep instead. From a Christian perspective, the foreshadowing of God's own sacrifice of his son and the atonement aspect are missing from this Islamic ritual of the sheep killing, but Christians should be able to appreciate the commemoration of unwavering obedience to God, even if the content and means of that obedience takes different forms in Islamic and Christian theology.

True Variety Radio

Most American radio stations self-identifying as "variety radio" don't hold a candle to the true variety on Moroccan airwaves.

While having breakfast this morning, I was listening to a Moroccan radio station. When I started listening, it was a news report in Fusha (standard Arabic). Next, the DJ started talking in French about various songs and local events, dropping in a few words in Darija here and there. Then the station's jingle came on. The jingle itself is half in French and half in English. The first part is in French and the last half brags about the station's "music and news".

The first song that came on was "The House of the Rising Sun", performed by the Animals. Then there was a Beach Boys' song. A little later, there was a contemporary French song.

After "You Can Call Me Al" came on, I turned the radio off. Less than thirty minute: news, talk, and music in four languages.

Animal Slaughtering Feast Holidays

Every year for the past 25 years of my life, I have spent this last full week of November preparing for Thanksgiving. And by 'preparing' I mean doing a little bit of schoolwork and then relaxing; my mother usually does the cooking. The lone exception, of course, was the year I lived in France, when I myself threw a Thanksgiving feast for over 40 exchange students. But every year, in some way or another, I have prepared for an ostensibly religious holiday that involves the slaughter of an animal.

This year is no different.

Of course, this year the animal in question is a sheep, and the ostensibly religious holiday is the Eid al Kabir, one of the most important holidays of the Muslim calendar.

The past few days, I have been asking my Moroccan co-workers, friends, and acquaintances what Eid al Kabir means to them. There are a few main themes that emerge.

The first is the reference to the Koranic story of Abraham and Ishmael. The story roughly follows the Biblical outline of Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 22, except that the sons are switched. Abraham is commanded of God to offer up his son as a sacrifice, and Abraham follows God's command. But just as he is about to kill his son, an angel stops him and instead, an animal is provided for the sacrifice.

There are two main points to the story. The first is that God expects us to submit to his command come what may. We are to offer utter obedience to God whatever he may call us to do. The other is that animals sacrificed are pleasing to God in some sort of way. I have tried to push a little bit on this last point to understand in what way the sacrifice pleases God or soothes his wrath, but I haven't heard any great answers. This last point is important because for Christians, the sacrifice of Jesus is supposed to be a once for all sacrifice.

The other two themes that emerge from Moroccan's discussion of Eid al Kabir are those of family and social solidarity. Eid al Kabir is the one holiday when the entire family gathers together in the same place (although sometimes it also happens during Ramadan or Eid el Saghir that follows Ramadan). So, we might say, Eid al Kabir is a bit like Christmas and Thanksgiving all rolled into one.

Also, since every family is required to kill a sheep and eat it (but not until after the king has killed his sheep), there is an opportunity for richer members of society to help poorer members of society. I have been told that many of the rich will buy an extra sheep (or even several) for the poorer families of Moroccan society in order for them to participate in this important holiday and feast.

I haven't been invited to Eid al Kabir just yet, but I'm hoping an invitation will be forthcoming. In the meantime, I'm planning a little get together with the other Americans before work on Thursday.

A Beautiful Sunday

I teach at 3 PM on Sundays, usually the quietest day of the week here.

Today, after taking care of some things around the house, I went to my favorite newsstand and picked up "The Economist" and "Tel Quel", a liberal, French-language Moroccan weekly.

Then I made my way over to one of the fancier cafes in town, the Salamanca (I guess "Spanish" = "fancy" here). I sat down on the front row of tables and chairs, facing the large plaza and park next to Ciy Hall.

As the waiter approached, I decided to preempt his French, "Salaamu 'Alaykum". A smile lit up his face and his attitude changed from seriousness to playfulness. In Arabic I ordered a cafe latte and then asked if they had Marakshias, my favorite local pastry. He smiled again, "Why, of course we do."

A little later he brought out the coffee and pastry, along with the tap water that accompanies every hot drink here in Morocco. He asked where I was from and we chatted a bit in Arabic.

Smiling, I opened "The Economist", and sipping my coffee, I began to read in the Moroccan sunlight.

Another Veil

I was teaching this morning when the director of our center burst through the door.

I expected her to tell me something or to ask for permission to speak to my class.

But she immediately addressed them, "Do any of you attend the Paul Valery school?"

Three students out of my eight raised their hands.

"Are any of you students in the classes that were closed because of the swine flu?"

A bit of confusion ensued. All of them knew of the closed classes, and some of them confused that with being in the class. The director switched to French in order to clarify.

As it turned out, one of my students was in the class that was closed.

The director said to him, "Why did you think it would be ok for you to come here if you can't go to your regular school?"

There is a serious concern at our school about the swine flu. We take students from almost every school in the city. So if a student brings it to the center, it could spread further and faster. And there would be a chance that our center would be shut down.

She sent him home and walked to the next class. And I resumed my lesson.

After class, I was on my way out to eat with two of my co-workers when we saw something that stopped our conversation dead in our tracks.

Three girls, crossing the street across from us, had their faces covered. But it wasn't the veil that over half of Moroccan women wear. Instead, they were wearing medical masks.

The swine flu has arrived in Meknes.

Happy Independence Day!

Yesterday was the 53rd anniversary of Moroccan independence, and so I had the day off.

The past week I have asked class after class what they plan to do for the holiday. Are there fireworks? Parades? A special type of meal? A picnic?

Apparently, the answer to all those questions is "no".

I asked my students what they planned to do on the day off, and the most popular response in all classes was "sleep".