Eid al-Adha

A couple days ago was the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha. Brendon’s good friend asked if we would like to celebrate with him and his family. We were very excited for this experience and we arrived promptly at 8:00am at our friend’s house the next day. We were told that this holiday was in honor of when Abraham was obeying God and was about to sacrifice his son but instead God provided a lamb to take the sons place. Eid was a special holiday that praises God for the substitute of the lamb. So every Eid al-Adha families come together and slaughter a lamb and have meals together.

When Brendon and I arrived I was shown the ladies door and Brendon walked through the men’s door. After coming into the house I was greeted by all the women with sided kisses and assalam wa alaikum (Peace be upon you). The women of the home showed great hospitality to all their guests. I wasn’t even allowed to throw my own trash away because they didn’t want me to have to get up. They had amazing food! They had a gigantic chocolate platter, another platter of pastries, coffee, tea, and dates! I loved it all!!

            

Brendon’s friend had the honor of slaughtering the lamb this Eid and it was a great privilege for him. By the time we got there the lamb had been slaughtered and skinned and now they were cutting up the meat that was hung in the backyard. They brought in a bucket of blood and meat from the lamb and I was told that for breakfast we were going to have the liver of the lamb. So about an hour or two later they brought out breakfast that consisted of liver, lettuce, bread, and Foul. The liver was interesting and I couldn’t eat a lot of it because my taste buds were thrown for a loop haha! We all ate on the ground which was really fun.

After breakfast we had more chocolate and pastries and just hung out and talked. There were about seven women and four younger girls. They all spoke Arabic but three of them knew English so they would help interpret conversations or questions. The family was so sweet and they had a lot of questions for me and vice versa. We had music on in the background the whole time and then there was a song that every liked so we got up and danced. If you know me….I was loving this!! I don’t know exactly what style of music this was – maybe Egyptian hip-hop? We danced Saudi style which is swaying back and forth and moving your hands. It’s a very peaceful/elegant way of dancing.

They served lunch which consisted of a HUGE platter of rice with lamb meat on top. I was so full by this time that I couldn’t eat too much. Everyone was so polite and kept me in the conversation by interpreting Arabic to English. After lunch ended it was around one so I was trying to feel it out to see if we had over stayed our welcome and it was time to go. I asked one of the sisters and she said, “oh no not at all!” So we talked a lot more and had a lot of fun talking about American culture and Saudi culture. Around 3:30 I heard that the boys were ready to leave so I got my Abaya back on and walked out the door to meet Brendon. We were there for 7 ½ hours and had so much to catch up on. Brendon also enjoyed his time with the men. They talked and played video games haha! The family was so welcoming and Brendon and I felt very honored to be a part of their day!

Culture shock anyone?

Hello everyone! We are about a week in now and have officially started our first days of work and are up and running with our teaching schedule. Above is a picture of Brendon’s school and believe me it is quiet a maze. It is three stories and I get lost almost everyday. Staci works at a different campus for the females only in a different part of the city because single males and single females can have no interaction what so ever. It's very different but more on that in a minute. We are both fitting very nicely with the job the teaching has been tons of fun. It's amazing what the students think about America and their questions that they have. The top Americans they knew were in their words: President Bush, President Obama, Condoleezza, Hilary Clinton, Oprah, Micheal Jackson, and who else? Akon (I know. Super random). They also thought it was funny that we only wanted 4 kids as each of them come from families with at least 5 or 6 boys and 3 or 4 girls. My favorite question so far that they have asked though was: "How close to your home is the Bermuda Triangle?" Glad to hear that out of the few world facts they know about, Bermuda Triangle is on the list.

Ok so back to some of the different things of Saudi culture. Male and female interaction is what they call haram, which basically means extremely off limits. What also fall in the category of haram are things like: movies, alcohol, music, talking about religion or politics, and of course – chess. Why chess? No clue. But don’t, worry checkers are ok. :) I don't understand it either.

Things that are haram are often very easy to spot here in the Kingdom. For example in the mall you will see huge pictures of a women in the store windows where the faces are all blurred out (sometimes its just the eyes blurred out) and all the skin covered up. How do they cover the skin? Well, as we saw just last night, just staple pieces of paper over it.

The malls are also policed. They are not the typical mall security you think of with their little night stick and watching for burglary. There sole purpose is to to kick out single guys. You see most most malls are woman and family only for 90% of the time. So single guys get the boot, but what happens when your wife goes into the girly store and you are waiting outside? Well that is something that Charlie found out the other day when he got kicked out of the mall after Corrie went into store to look around!

Many times we just have to laugh, play the ignorant american card and scratch our heads later about how different it is here. It is an amazing culture and one that we are growing to love for all of it’s differences. Our interactions have been wonderful with the people and we have learned the amazing hospitality of our Arab brothers. We love you all and always love to hear how you are doing as well. Keep in touch!