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by Majed Abulola |
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ISALC, Lewis and Clark College
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by Majed Abulola |
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Every country in this world has its own customs and traditions. Also, those customs are really different from country to country. Saudi Arabia is one of the countries that has a lot of different customs, such as wearing white clothes and wearing "shomakh", which is a red hat. One of these customs is when you have a new baby, you will invite your friends over to your house and have dinner there. Actually, most of the time, the dinner consists of a sheep that has been slaughtered by you. The reason for telling this story is because my first cousin had a baby three weeks ago, and yesterday we went together to slaughter a sheep, and it was the first time for me to do this.
When I came back home yesterday from school, I saw my cousin in my apartment waiting for me. Then, I looked at him and said, "What's up?" After that, he asked me to go with him to Corvallis in order to slaughter a sheep to celebrate the birth of his son. So I decided to go with him in order to watch him do it, and also to learn the way of doing it.
We left from my place around 4 o'clock. The distance wasn't that far from downtown Portland to Corvallis. However, the way was full of cars because of rush hour, so we were stuck over there on I-5 South, and we spent about two hours getting to Corvallis. We arrived and we were so happy to see the sheep running around and eating the grass. But what amazed me is those kinds of animals don't know that some of them will be eaten very soon! In other words, they will be dead and gone very soon.
Suddenly, the guy who worked there came in front of us and started to ask, "How many heads do you need?", which means how many sheep do you need to slaughter. Then, my cousin answered him saying, "We need six." And the guy said, "OK, I will be right with you after you choose the six." It took us just five minutes to choose them by picking out the youngest sheep from the special section that this place has for them.
The guy brought the sheep to my cousin who was already ready to butcher them. After two hours, my cousin had already done five of them, so there was only one left. My cousin actually wanted me to take care of the last one, but I didn't like the idea at all because watching their blood was disgusting already, and I couldn't imagine that he would ask me to do this. Also, he was like a wife nagging at me, and he was always making jokes with me during this time by saying, "You are a wimp," which means I am chicken. Finally, I accepted his challenge saying, "Give me your knife." My hand was shaking because of doing this, and I started to pull the sheep's head, holding the knife at the same time. Then, the guy who worked there taught me how to do it by putting the knife into the right place, and he asked me to move it up and down. As a result, I did it perfectly, but I didn't enjoy doing it because I wasn't used to it yet, and never will be.
Doing those kinds of things like slaughtering and butchering aren't easy for the people who have weak hearts. Also, they aren't good for children to watch because I guarantee you they will cry so hard, and they will call the people who work there, "killers." Actually, I got good experience from what I did on that day, but I hope not to do it again, even if I have ten children.
Created by: krauss@lclark.edu
Updated: 10/1/99