Tomorrow is the first day of the Eid holidays in Morocco. I will be visiting Marrakesh for a weekend getaway with Deepsixed. Woohoo.....!
On this day, muslims commemorate Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son Ibrahim to show his devotion to Allah. Instead of sons, muslim households will each sacrifice a sheep on this day. It is also a day for charity as 2/3 of the sheep will be given away to the poor so the meat doesn't go to waste.
About a month or so before this event in Algeria and Morocco, you can see a lot of sheep being traded by people just about anywhere you go. In Morocco, a sheep cost about USD300.
I heard that in Morocco, 1 million sheeps will be sacrificed tomorrow. Geez, that's like 1/3 of Singapore's population!
Sacrificial Lambs in Algiers: taken from a passing Corolla. Where's Little Bo Peep?
6 comments:
good blog keepit up
Hello, I am a French journalist for TV. I am preparing a special tv show on expats, and particulary on expats living in Africa. We will discuss about Kenya, Algeria, Burundi, Tchad and Nigeria.
The aim is to give another point of view than the one expressed in the main channels, and allow people who live there to express their way of seing day to day life.
I would be interested by your comments on daily life in Kenya at these days, how much did you adapt your behaviour, how do you see the immediate future, do you fear for your family ...
Any kind of contribution would be useful : emails, webcam, videos, photos... The show is on Monday 7/1 If interested please email me at : fmallez@hotmail.fr
Thank you
sorry, my message has been sent too quickly. I was taking about your daily life in Algiers, and how you modified your behaviour (or not) regarding security concerns in Algeria.
On the tv show, we will have expats in Algeria, Kenya, Tchad, Nigeria etc etc
Thanks
This is a most interesting blog.
Best Wishes to all,
Tor
Hi,
I'm an Algerian American, who lives in NYC and lived in Algiers for quite a while and although I agree with some of your comments on Algeria, I realize you streotype a lot. It doesn't seem like you have tried to meet algerians or go to local places where people hang out, there are concerts in Algiers and museums and clubs and a handful of movie theaters, yes it's not Paris or Singapore or London, but you can still have fun in Algiers if you make the effort, Algeria is just about trying to come out of a terrible islamic guerilla war and turning to the worst of capitalism, it will take time for people to change to this new lifestyle. In addition, we have tremendous roman ruins that you haven't seemed to visit, nature is beautiful if you get out a little bit from Algiers. The desert is magnificent but apparently you haven't been there, how about Taghit or Djanet or Tamanrasset? The coastline to Jijel and Bejaia and Oran is amazing too?
There are good people and bad people, sorry that you only met the worst in Algeria but not all of them are bad.
Hi anonymous,
For obvious security reasons, I restrict my movement to local places and interaction with local people. I often get harrassed while walking on the streets by curious locals.
I think there's a difference between being an expat and being a tourist in Algeria. Since I'm not a tourist, I can't be visiting the
roman ruins at Tipaza or the Sahara every weekend. Being an expat here for a while, I quickly ran out of things to do and places to go rather quickly.
Indeed, the beauty of the places you mentioned were much touted to be unequal by Algerians here. But I have been disappointed too many times to have any expectations.
The locals were not sincere enough to fulfil their promise to be good guides or the places I was brought to left much to be desired.
But even if I lower my standards, the language barrier puts me at a disadvantage to fully enjoy the concerts, museums and movie theaters.
I'm not sure what is your definition of fun. To me, Algeria belongs to the category of fun that I may appreciate more when I'm nearing retirement age.
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