A: You look terrible; did you get a cold or something?
S: No. My neighbours bought a couple of goats a week ago, since Eid is around the corner, and they keep them in the tiny little corridor by the side of the house. They keep bleating all night, right beneath by window, in the morning their kids walk them all up and down the street. I can’t remember the last time I slept properly.
A: Haha, city boy can’t handle being around farm animals. Every summer during my teen years I used to keep an eye on whole herd of goats while I slept. You’re too soft you know. Even the neighbour’s kids get along with goats better than you, and how old are they? Six? Seven?
S: They get along too well if you ask me. A few days from now their precious ‘Razzle’ and ‘Dazzle’ will be butchered – that’s what they’ve named them – and they will be traumatised for the rest of their life. I think it is quite cruel, bring home a farm animal, let you children get attached to it, then kill it in your front yard and make kebabs out of it. Eid is bloody.
A: Well kids need to know where meat comes from; they can’t believe it grows on trees for the rest of their life. And no one butchers farm animals in front of kids; t hat would be traumatising. Most parents just take them to the other room and explain the whole thing. It’s a valuable lesson – everything is part of the food chain.
S: Not all, how big is an urban house? The desperate dying screams seep through all walls, and trust me when I tell you they are terrifying to a kid. Even after that, you can see the blood in your front yard for days, the whole house smells like it. The Eid sacrifice should never be done in your own house, at least never in cites.
A: Is that what happened to you? You saw a sacrifice in progress as a kid?
S: Yes. It was a camel. The blood was so pink, and so much. I can still see its legs trembling.