End of Ramadan

I happen to be in Egypt when the festival at the end of Ramadan started. It is a celebration/feast of the time when Moses was given a sheep to sacrifice, instead of his own child(best guess).

To kick it off they slaughter cows, goats, and sheep. You can find large carcasses hanging throughout the cities including Cairo where a big shop will have 10. The hotel that I stay at slaughters animals and then gives the meat to the poor. And I do not mean that the animal is slaughtered elsewhere, nope right in front of the hotel. The hotel has two doors that lead to two different alleys. Early morning they started on first cow and about 2 hours later nothing remained except washed pavement. In the other alley they started midday and decided that it is better to take your time, and not wash down the alley. Women in really duded up clothes were stepping carefully through this. One interesting custom is for the cutters to put there bloody hands, on peoples backs.

After some other guests and I returned from a tour we were greeted by what looked like a mob scene. I thought for sure something was wrong. Nope they were giving away meat to the poor. They ended up locking the door to keep people out.

Today people were out everywhere, smiling, laughing and kids up to no good. In one park people were picnicking, dancing, singing, clapping and there was a fake sword fight using sticks. One of my favorite ways of celebration was minibuses, loaded with children signing and yelling, door open, driving in caravans around town.