This year Thanksgiving weekend also happened to be Gurban Bayram or Sacrifice Holiday. Gurban Bayram is a Muslim holiday which celebrates and remembers when God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son and then sent a ram to take the sons place. This is the same story many Americans are familiar with but for a small exception-the son in question is not Isaac but his half brother Ishmael. The holiday is celebrated quite literally-those who can afford to do so actually sacrifice a ram. The meat is then divided into little plastic baggies and distributed among those who do not have the means for their own sacrifice or as a donation to the poor. Of course being PCVs, we qualified for a plastic baggie :-)We actually witnessed the whole thing as it took place in our yard. Women to not do the killing of animals here (not even chickens) nor did they attend. I got to watch our landlord and a friend dispatch the ram because we don't have curtains on our windows yet and I was still in bed. As I quickly got dressed the rest of the family filed into the yard to watch the butchering part. I came out to watch and was sent back inside to get a warmer coat. Our landlady told us that you can't drink vodka with the meat from the sacrifice. It's my understanding that Muslims aren't supposed to drink at all but Azeri Muslims are like Easter Catholics-they just make sure to hold off on sacrifice day.
After the main guts are out, the women take over. You can see in the above picture that I got to help! After the meat was distributed and everything cleaned up, all that was left was the fur and the head which were left in our yard for a few days, much to Baby Cat's delight.
I really enjoy Gurban Bayram and especially this year as it was juxtaposed with our own musings of what we've been given and perhaps, what has been sacrificed for us.
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