Eid-ul-Azha

So I am back in Dhaka after many weeks of travel! I will post pictures and thoughts from my adventures in other parts of Asia soon. But first, Eid-ul-Azha, which happened in the middle of December.

Eid-ul-Azha is a Muslim holiday that celebrates Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his own son. Muslims around the world celebrate this festival and in Muslim countries, families with money will purchase animals to sacrifice. Traditionally, one third of the meat is used as a meal for the owners of the animal, one third of the meat is distributed to other family, and one third of the meat is given to those less fortunate.

In middle eastern countries, the animal sacrifice is apparently done indoors, in the garage or behind a fence. In Bangladesh, the families have the sacrifice right on the street. In middle eastern countries, the animal of choice for sacrifice is sheep. In Bangladesh, they sacrifice cows. You can also purchase goats, and the unreasonably rich families import camels from abroad. Think about that for a second. Eid in Dhaka is a holiday where they kill cows on the streets. Thousands and thousands of cows! In the couple of weeks leading up to this event, huge markets are set up to sell animals for sacrifice.

Here are some cows being shipped into Dhaka. Apparently many are illegally imported from India, where there is a surplus due to the whole sacred cow thing.

A cow market about three blocks from my apartment.

The animals are then tied up in front of the houses, awaiting the day of slaughter. Some people like to purchase expensive cars to show off their wealth, while others wear expensive jewelry. Well, the Bangladeshis are no different, but they also purchase beautiful animals and tie them up outside their houses to show off before they kill them. When I was walking around to check out my neighborhood-turned-temporary-petting-zoo, some of the neighbors would point to their collection of animals and tell me how much they spent on sacrificial cows. Some of them spent thousands of U.S. dollars on cows!!

My friend Iftekar and his daughter Fatima posing in front of the camel that everyone was talking about in Gulshan.

Beautiful white cows down the block from where I live. These probably cost at least $2,000 each.

Well on the day of Eid-ul-Azha, the streets of Dhaka run red with blood, and I am not joking. It amazes me that I have never heard of this event before, but I suppose that since most Muslim countries don't have sacrifices on the street, the spectacle hasn't been as widely publicized. Whatever the reason, this leads me to believe that there are many more crazy things that happen in the world that I don't even know exist yet.

Some people stay indoors, close their windowshades, cover their eyes and ears and wait for Eid to pass. I imagine it is not a fun day for Hindus. However, I had no intention of missing the action, so I went with my friends Sara and Jason downtown to Old Dhaka. The residents of Old Dhaka might not have as much money, but they are proud of what they've got, and they love to show off their cows, dead or alive.

We drove down a little after sunrise, and found a cow market that was trying to get rid of their remaining cows. They don't really speak English down in Old Dhaka, so I needed to find out how to say "cow sacrifice" in Bangla. I mimed slitting my throat, and then asked how to say that. After a minute of clarification, I emerged with an important word, which probably roughly translates as "to slaughter". Old Dhaka was then subjected to three hours of Jimmy, Sara, and Jason, in which I asked questions like "where will cows be slaughtered?" and "can you bring me to a cow slaughter which is happening soon?" and the occasional "I want to see cow blood".

Because we had arrived so early, it was quiet, and we thought we might have missed out on all of the sacrifices. In about twenty minutes, we managed to see our first sacrifice, and then things got serious. The method of killing the cow is basically to cut the aorta and the windpipe without cutting the spinal cord, so the heart is still beating and pumping out blood for another four or five minutes. I'm not entirely sure why, but for some reason I think that they want to get as much blood out of the animal as possible before it dies. I would say that after seeing twenty-five cows being sacrificed, the novelty wore off a little bit. For about an hour, we were whisked through the alleyways by the locals. Everyone wanted us to see their cow being sacrificed, and how can you say no when someone asks if you will watch them kill a cow?

I will now post some pictures for your consideration. IF YOU DON'T LIKE SEEING ANIMALS BEING KILLED OR BLOOD OR ANIMALS LEAKING BLOOD OR ANY COMBINATION OF THESE THINGS, YOU WILL NOT BE SCROLLING ANY FARTHER DOWN. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!




SERIOUSLY, LAST CHANCE. DID YOU READ MY WARNING??

Cutting the neck of the cow. You can see the blood streaming out of the aorta!

The streets run red...

They were very proud of their used knives. Haha, its all fun and games! How could anything possibly go wrong...??

Well, it used to be fun and games, and now Jason is holding a warm, bloody knife. He is not sure whether to laugh or cry.

Some of these kids were uncomfortably immature about dead cows. I'm not even really sure how to explain that, except by showing pictures of the kids pretending to lick cow blood.

These guys managed to dismantle an entire cow in about five minutes.

Later in the day, the poor travel around in big groups with bags, where they collect meat being handed out by the rich families, aka Trick or Meat. This street is usually pretty quiet.

I got some people to show me their bags. They were so excited!

This is where Eid differs slightly from Halloween.