İyi Bayramlar

A couple of weeks ago was the Islamic holiday of sacrifices. The story that I read on Facebook about Bayram (the holiday's name) was that Abraham wanted to have a child with his wife but couldn't so, he prayed to God asking to be able to have a child with her, and that if they could have a child, he would later sacrifice the child to show his obedience to God. Later, he miraculously had a child with his wife and after the child grew older, God told Abraham that he had to sacrifice the child, because he promised he would. When Abraham was about to sacrifice the child, an angel came down to him with a ram and said that Abraham had clearly shown his obedience and been faithful to God because he was about to sacrifice the child, so he could just sacrifice the ram instead and he gave the meat to the poor people. I read all of this after the holiday itself, so I had absolutely no idea why we were sacrificing a sheep or whatever we ended up sacrificing (a lot of things go and stay unknown when there is a language barrier), but now I understand why the Muslims sacrifice animals and then donate half of their sacrifices to the poor and hungry people.

So, all of this Bayram talk started a couple of Wednesdays ago when I was at dinner with my host family and they were trying to explain to me what Bayram was, and all I understood was “Grandpa” and “sacrifice” so, I was thinking, “Oh my goodness, we can't sacrifice grandpa! I miss my sheltered Midwest lifestyle...” but, it turns out they were just telling we were going to go to grandpa's house and butcher a sheep. So, not as graphic as I was afraid. In the past people would sacrifice the sheep or animal themselves, but now people just do the butchering themselves.

The next day my host family and I all went to my host mom's parents' house and celebrated Bayram! My host mom's brother, his wife and son all came as well. We had breakfast as a family, ate some baklava, then the men all went and butchered the meat. At one point I went to see what they were doing, and coming from a home that was vegetarian for nearly a year before I left, I was a little bit shocked that the men were all actually sitting around butchering a lamb (or something). I wasn't disturbed or anything by the situation, but I definitely didn't feel like I was still in Ohio. My host dad learned the word “butcher,” so he kept telling me “I am butcher!” it was so funny. They were just taking the ax to the meat like it was just an average Thursday. No big deal.

In the evening we were able to go through the garden (in the end of October...) and pick some fruits and vegetables. We then went to visit Sevgi (my host mom)'s aunt and uncle who lived in the same village as her parents, so it wasn't a long drive. They live in a house that's hundreds of years old, and was around during the Ottoman Empire, so I thought that was interesting. We had coffee and baklava with them. I just had baklava because coffee gives me terrible head aches and stomach aches. I don't think it's actually healthy, but I just avoid coffee whenever possible.

After visiting with Sevgi's aunt and uncle, we returned to her parents' house where we had dinner as a family. Everything was very good, it was so much food, and then we had MORE baklava (yummy!). After dinner my host family and I returned to our home. It was a really good day, and I was happy to be able to see a Muslim holiday because I've grown up in a house that only celebrates Christian holidays! It was really different for me, but I like really different, so it was really great. İyi Bayramlar! (Happy Holidays!)