The bright glow of the lanterns hung low above us, crowding the already congested popular quarter of Alexandria's Izbit Sa'ad district. Like every other "sha'aby" (common) area in Egypt, my senses were inundated with innumerable stimuli: the boisterous voices of the meat and fruit vendors, the countless shoppers bargaining and shouting to them how much their bag of dinner will weigh: "3ayiz 3 kilo tamaatim (I want 3 kilos of tomatoes!). The live birds scrambling to escape from their wooden crates, children screaming and throwing around a soccer ball through the puddles of muddy, brown water. The tram whizzes by with young men dangling bravely out the door and playing Russian Roulette with the telephone poles, jumping on and off as it slowed, stopped, and jolted back to life at a rickety, lightning speed. The smell of butchered meat and fruit filled my nostrils as I sat at that cafe table with the other students, smoking a sheesha (hooka) and enjoying the shay bi-na3naa3 (mint tea) and the wonderful generosity and hospitality of Jordan's boss, the cafe owner in this little corner of Izbit Sa'ad, not 5 minutes from the dorms.
I stop smoking the sheesha as my stomach begins to turn. It's time to stop, my stomach can't really take the strength of this water-filtered tobacco. Before our small party leaves the cozy affair, the butcher comes over, excited to see foreigners enjoying their sheeshas and offers for us to witness a dibHa (a sheep slaughter) to commemorate the end of Eid. I am curious, and decide to stay for a closer look, for the "cultural experience". As our party crowds around, the butcher and a group of men drag over a very reluctant victim and force pin it to the ground. I felt awkward and a weird sense of sympathy for the sheep. It knew it was going to die, I could see it in its jerky, panicked movements and through the dark, empty, and fearfully-dilated pupils.
Everyone was smiling and laughing. It became surreal when the butcher beckoned over his son, not older than 4; an excited gleam in his eyes. The butcher bent down in his white robe with his son, extending a large, sharp knife to the sheep's neck as it continued to kick and bleat. The son grabbed his father's hand and the knife. They began to saw through the neck. The animal bleated as it swung it's head around in circles, dying slowly. Blood gushed and squirted from the gash, raining back down and filling the holes in the ground with puddles of red, reflecting the bright glow of the lanterns above. After a minute, the beast succumbed to the bloodletting. It lay there, twitching its legs every few seconds, the last nerves dying as the brain slowly shut down and the heart pumped the last beats of blood to the extremities.
The butcher picked up his son, both laughing and smiling, excited about the young boy's first slaughter, a sort of rite of passage. "That was not Halal (religiously correct)," said Muhammad, my academic director who joined us for the cafe excursion. The animal should not have suffered. I kept telling myself over and over, "alright, I feel fine. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Blood? Maybe I'm over this irrational sickness of seeing it." Just then, the excited commotion of my classmates and the street began to muffle, and my ears began to ring. I went deaf as I turned around to leave. "Guys, will you come with me? I gotta go, like now. Let's go!" I said impatiently. I knew what was happening, I was going to faint for the first time in my life. My fight or flight mechanism kicked on and I wasn't responding accordingly as the blood flooded from my head to my legs. "Run!" they said. But I walked, slowly, as I negotiated with others the terms of our departure. My vision blurred, as if I had just rubbed my eyes. Deep purples and blues clouded the bright lanterns and the smiling faces. I thought "Oh God, please let me get out of here. Don't let me be the white kid that faints because he can't handle a slaughter. Don't let me faint on this dirty ground. Don't let me have to go to the hospital or be carried out. I will die of mortification." "Matt, you need to sit down and put your feet up!" an indiscernible voice called to me. No, I thought. I just need to get out and I'll be ok. If I stay, I'll faint. I stumbled out as my legs wobbled, half blind and totally deaf.
The 3 of us finally make it to the open air and I slowly regain my ground. I felt nauseous, but damn it, I resisted fainting! Talk about will power. That was until we turned right onto the open street and found a large group of children playing soccer. Fuck, a dysfunctional white guy and 2 white, foreign girls. This was going to be annoying...
The kids stopped playing soccer and stared at us in wonderment as we approached, our eyes toward the main road behind them to catch a cab the hell out of there. As predicted, these little shits were true terrors. Poking and prodding the girls, making comments at us, and yelling broken, common "Egyptian English" at us. "Hello, how are you? What is your name? How old are you?" Frustrated, unsteady, and absolutely overwhelmed I turned around and yelled at them as loud as I could in Egyptian Arabic: "Watch your mouths and respect yourself! Don't you have any respect for anyone older than you?!" I did it, I couldn't resist the urge. I should have just ignored them. They began to throw stones at us, so I picked one up and threw it back and charged back at these little shits. I stopped. What the hell was I doing? Get a grip, get in the damn cab! They came up to one of the girls to apologize, and she turned around, told him that he was a little shit and his apology wasn't good enough. That set him off again, calling her a whore and a bitch until a passing man told the children to shut the hell up. We finally escaped to the street and waited in the dark for 20 minutes. No one wanted to take us to Khalil al-Khayat. That's the thing about Egyptian cab drivers. If you're not going far enough away, they might not take you. It's all about the customer, how much he looks like he can afford, how far he's going, how he's dressed, etc. Assumptions galore in this game of give and take, bargaining and haggling. It's an art, and unfortunately for us, we weren't feeling very artistic. I finally found a cab and stumbled my exhausted ass up the stairs and plopped legs-up on the couch.
Alberto finally came home and looked pitifully at me. No words were needed. It was all understood. I was later consoled to know that there are even Muslims that can't handle a slaughter on Eid. I don't know why I was so shocked to know this, it makes sense. A human is a human, we all have our tolerances, and our religious and life experiences don't necessarily dictate our behavior or biological/physiological reactions to stimuli. The adjectives we use to describe ourselves sometimes just doesn't encapsulate the whole person. Sometimes it takes a shocking, impromptu stimuli to show a person's true character, their true weaknesses and tolerances, and their noble strengths. Sometimes 50 years of stagnation, decline, and despair can reverse with one spark and explode into 80 million angry voices screaming for bread, freedom, and human dignity.
I think a gut reaction shows who You really are. It's a spontaneous, internal spark that thrashes you, propelling you forward, changing forever what you tell yourself is is all under control and you're so sure of who you are and what you can accept. You turn inside out, the internal becoming external, the cacophony of hypocrisy is silenced with the new, deafening congruence between the outer and the inner. Sometimes it takes a ritualistic slaughter and a temporary paralysis of the senses to realize one's capabilities and where the boundaries are drawn.
I've never really had the stomach for blood.
I've never really had the stomach for blood.
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