Their are two "Eid" celebrations for Muslims. The first one is called Eid ul-Fitr (or the "small" Eid) and is the holiday that marks the end of Ramadan (the month of fasting). The second one is called Eid al-Adha (or the "Big" Eid) and occurs a couple months after Ramadan and after Hajj (the pilgrimage to Mecca). Eid al-Adha means the "festival of sacrifice" and each family (who has the means to) sacrifices a sheep in honor of the Prophet Ibrahim who was told by God to sacrific his son and as he was about to obey the orders, God replaced his son with a sheep. Following the slaughter, the sheep is divided into 3 parts. One part for the family to keep, one to give away to family/friends, and the last third is given to the poor.
This was my first time being in Libya for the Eid of the sacrifice. I have never seen a sheep (or anything for that matter) slaughtered because in the states you can't just go buy a sheep, take it to your house and kill it. The days prior to the slaughter there were sheep being sold EVERYWHERE. I heard people yelling the price, which I think was 3,500 dinars (I don't really know the conversion, but I think it's around $2,800 dollars), considering that a monthly salary of 350 dinars is good, not everyone can afford to buy a sheep. On the morning of Eid I heard people talking around 8am, so I got out of bed, walked out of my room and ran into my cousin who said "come outside, come outside". I wandered outside half asleep still and saw the sheep tied up on the ground (alive still).(IF YOU DONT WANT TO READ THE BLOODY DETAILS, PLEASE GO DOWN TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH). Then my cousin or his friend (I can't even remember now who had the knife because I couldn't look away from the sheep) took the knife to the sheep's neck and started cutting. Oh gosh it was horrible. Blood starting spurting everywhere, I put my hand over my mouth and turned around. When I turned back the sheep was making noises (i think it was crying) and flailing around a bit. I felt so bad for the sheep that I started to cry. My Aunt and my cousin's wife were asking me "why are you crying?" and then started telling me the religious reasons for why they sacrifice the sheep. I felt bad because I felt like I was offending them by crying, but I was so shocked by what I saw. My cousin then told me to go inside, so I did and stayed there most of the day because the smell from the dead sheep and meat everywhere was so strong and so bad. I think if I had seen the sheep after it was dead I would have been fine, but watching the slaughter was horrible. Since I was sent inside after the slaughter I didnt see what they did to the sheep, but basically they skin it, cut it open and take out the insides (clean out the bowel, drain the intestines, etc). It was definitely quite the experience, but not one I care too much to relive.
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I had a week off of work for Eid, so that was nice. Today was my last day working at the Libyan school. I came here with the intention of working at the European school and will continue working there, but since I want to learn Arabic I decided I didn't want to spend 5 days a week working in English and the Principal at the Libyan school was very understanding and told me I could still come by any time I wanted. The European school is going well. This Thursday there is a Christmas Bazaar that I am helping at, so I am looking forward to seeing a little bit of Christmas :) I have been spending lots of time at my other Aunt's house (not the Aunt I live with) and have been enjoying that a lot. I always learn new words in arabic while there because her house is always full of people.
One thing I have been missing lately is having good conversations about things that matter. I miss talking about the news with people (especially after my summer internship at the Carter Center where I discussed current events daily with my co-workers). It's not just the language barrier that makes these kinds of conversations difficult, it's also not what most women talk about here. The conversations with women usually focus around the health of family/friends, weddings, food, and other gossip. Sometimes even if I understand most of the conversation I start tuning it out because it doesn't interest me to hear about what food they served at last night's wedding and how pretty, ugly, fat, thin the bride was. Men tend to have more intelligent conversations, but since men and women are generally separated I don't get to talk with them. Anyway, maybe this means I should call my friends from home more often to get my fix of good conversations :)
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Weddings and Funerals
Weddings and funerals are probably the two biggest "events" in Libya. Streets are literally blocked off by huge tents and filled with chairs for people to sit in. So far I have been to 2 weddings (but have been invited to attend at least one every week) and a funeral. The amount of people that attend both is enormous (upwards of 1,000) and they both last for about a week (although people come over to your house to wish you congratulations or condolences for at least a month if not more). Attending weddings and funerals is often considered a "social obligation", especially if you have a connection to the family. People will remember who came and didn't and it could affect your social standing and reputation.
For weddings, in addition to the large tents outside the house, there usually are big, colorful street lights (looks like christmas lights). On the 3 or 4 main wedding days all the family going to the wedding leave together and the cars all honk, put their emergency blinkers on and travel to the wedding hall together (it's quite unique to see and I feel like it's the only time other cars on the road will give someone the right of way to keep the cars all together). There are special "wedding halls" for weddings, they basically are just huge rooms with a stage at the front. I don't particularly enjoy attending weddings, but once in a while I enjoy going to observe the women (only women attend the weddings, men have separate gatherings). Lots of women wear an obscene amount of make-up and I find it so ugly (they really look like clowns with face paint on...I am not meaning to be rude, but it is the best way to describe it), but they obviously find it attractive :) Some women attend weddings because they are looking to get married and want the mom's, aunt's, etc of the potential grooms to see them.
I have never been asked about marriage so often as here. After asking my religion it is usually the second topic of conversation that comes up. The questions are always some variation of "Are you married?", "When are you getting married?" "Will you have your wedding in Libya or America?" and are asked by all ages (including all of my students from elementary school to high school). One of my dad's friends saw me and exclaimed "You look like a bride!"...I got confused because I thought maybe he thought I was getting married, but I later realized it was just his way of saying I was all grown up.
As I mentioned, funerals are just as big as weddings although unfortunately not as joyous of an occasion. I had never been to a funeral in Libya before, so it was quite the experience for me. The Aunt of the principal at the Libyan school past away and since I have spent a lot of time with her in the past few weeks I went on the second day of the funeral (called Azah here). When someone passes away, the bodies are buried the day they die and only men attend the burial ceremony. After the burial there are 3 days of Azah, where everyone who knew the person comes to the house along with everyone who knows someone who knew the person who passed away (hence the need for the big tents to hold everyone). One of dad's cousins passed away while he was here and my dad told me that there were over a thousand people at the house. I don't think I really realized how many people that was until I went to the azah...I was in shock by the number of people that were there, definitely over one thousand (and I only saw the women). The "immediate" family (which is usually a few hundred at least) will continue going to the house for at least a week, and some even longer (months).
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There is a traveling ship that goes around the mediterranean (I think) that carries books on it. It just arrived yesterday in Benghazi and today I am going to see it, I am really excited because there are hardly any bookstores and nothing in English. This ship is supposed to be really big and most of the books are in English and I heard there are some in Spanish too!
One story that I was going to include in my last post, but forgot has to do with a mini-victory with make-up girl (from the European school). One day I let her sit in the hallway during her study period because I was tutoring the ESL students. When I went to check on her she was gone, I walked down the hall and found her in the Year 11 classroom (she is year 12) doing her make-up! I said "What are you doing in here??", she said "Miss, I am sorry I didn't mean for you catch me doing my make-up", Me "You are always doing your make-up! Get out of the year 11 room and go back to the table!". It had been a long and bad day with the students, so I was really frusterated with her. The next time I was at the school she came up to me after study period ended and said "Miss, did you notice I am not wearing any make-up today?", I said "No. You don't need make-up, you look very pretty without it". She said "Yeah, well I wanted to go with my natural look today because last week you said all I ever do is my make-up". I was shocked because she had actually listened to me and thought about what I had said. Of course, she is now back to doing her make-up all the time, but it was a mini-victory with her while it lasted. :)
For weddings, in addition to the large tents outside the house, there usually are big, colorful street lights (looks like christmas lights). On the 3 or 4 main wedding days all the family going to the wedding leave together and the cars all honk, put their emergency blinkers on and travel to the wedding hall together (it's quite unique to see and I feel like it's the only time other cars on the road will give someone the right of way to keep the cars all together). There are special "wedding halls" for weddings, they basically are just huge rooms with a stage at the front. I don't particularly enjoy attending weddings, but once in a while I enjoy going to observe the women (only women attend the weddings, men have separate gatherings). Lots of women wear an obscene amount of make-up and I find it so ugly (they really look like clowns with face paint on...I am not meaning to be rude, but it is the best way to describe it), but they obviously find it attractive :) Some women attend weddings because they are looking to get married and want the mom's, aunt's, etc of the potential grooms to see them.
I have never been asked about marriage so often as here. After asking my religion it is usually the second topic of conversation that comes up. The questions are always some variation of "Are you married?", "When are you getting married?" "Will you have your wedding in Libya or America?" and are asked by all ages (including all of my students from elementary school to high school). One of my dad's friends saw me and exclaimed "You look like a bride!"...I got confused because I thought maybe he thought I was getting married, but I later realized it was just his way of saying I was all grown up.
As I mentioned, funerals are just as big as weddings although unfortunately not as joyous of an occasion. I had never been to a funeral in Libya before, so it was quite the experience for me. The Aunt of the principal at the Libyan school past away and since I have spent a lot of time with her in the past few weeks I went on the second day of the funeral (called Azah here). When someone passes away, the bodies are buried the day they die and only men attend the burial ceremony. After the burial there are 3 days of Azah, where everyone who knew the person comes to the house along with everyone who knows someone who knew the person who passed away (hence the need for the big tents to hold everyone). One of dad's cousins passed away while he was here and my dad told me that there were over a thousand people at the house. I don't think I really realized how many people that was until I went to the azah...I was in shock by the number of people that were there, definitely over one thousand (and I only saw the women). The "immediate" family (which is usually a few hundred at least) will continue going to the house for at least a week, and some even longer (months).
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There is a traveling ship that goes around the mediterranean (I think) that carries books on it. It just arrived yesterday in Benghazi and today I am going to see it, I am really excited because there are hardly any bookstores and nothing in English. This ship is supposed to be really big and most of the books are in English and I heard there are some in Spanish too!
One story that I was going to include in my last post, but forgot has to do with a mini-victory with make-up girl (from the European school). One day I let her sit in the hallway during her study period because I was tutoring the ESL students. When I went to check on her she was gone, I walked down the hall and found her in the Year 11 classroom (she is year 12) doing her make-up! I said "What are you doing in here??", she said "Miss, I am sorry I didn't mean for you catch me doing my make-up", Me "You are always doing your make-up! Get out of the year 11 room and go back to the table!". It had been a long and bad day with the students, so I was really frusterated with her. The next time I was at the school she came up to me after study period ended and said "Miss, did you notice I am not wearing any make-up today?", I said "No. You don't need make-up, you look very pretty without it". She said "Yeah, well I wanted to go with my natural look today because last week you said all I ever do is my make-up". I was shocked because she had actually listened to me and thought about what I had said. Of course, she is now back to doing her make-up all the time, but it was a mini-victory with her while it lasted. :)
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
the small things
I feel like a lot of my experience is made up of small moments of success/happiness. I am not saying that the rest of the time is bad because I am definitely enjoying my time here, but there are moments when I feel really happy for one reason or another. Examples:
* Last week I connected with one of the students at the European school who had left the school for a year and was feeling a little lost upon returning (I could relate after leaving Linfield for a year). I spent over an hour listening to her and it was nice because I think she just needed someone to listen to her express herself.
* Yesterday I drove for the second time here (with someone else in the car, not alone...maybe someday?) and during rush hour! It was great! :)
* A few days ago I was at the athletic club I joined and was waiting for my cousin to pick me up. I looked out the window and saw a car that kind of looked like his, so I went outside. Once I opened the door I realized it wasn't his car, but I decided not to go back inside because it was SO nice and cool outside. I sat on the steps and decided to take out my journal, I was SO happy to be outside by myself. A few minutes later a woman from the club opened the door and asked me to come inside. I got up a little confused and walked to the door, she said I should sit inside, I asked her why and she said that it was the club's policy that I wait inside. I was bummed, but I went back inside.
* At the new school I am teaching at (I will talk more about it later) a girl came up to me after the first class and said she was so happy to hear me speak english because she had been living for the past 7 years in Sweden (she is about 11 years old) and misses talking in english (she speaks english, swedish and arabic!). She was telling how hard adjusting to life here has been for her and she started to cry. She had to go to class but I told her we could talk more later in the day if she had a break. She found me during her lunch break and I listened to her for about an hour, she cried the entire time. I felt so bad for her and didn't feel like I could do anything but validate her feelings. I couldn't say things will get better because it's the culture here and it's not going to change...hopefully it will just get better. She is such an intelligent young girl and cares so much about others and knows what's going on in the world (something that can probably be attributed to her education in Sweden and her parents). It made me reflect on the 16/17 year olds I deal with at the European school and I really think this 11 year-old is wiser than any of them. I could say so much more about her...she came to conclusions and realizations that some adults don't even come to in a lifetime. She told me she wants to do something big for her country and I think she will. :)
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My dad left about a week ago, so now the "real" work starts (as I can't rely on my dad to translate for me). I feel like I am understanding more Arabic now and if I don't understand something my family is usually able to use different vocabulary that they know I do understand. Sometimes I still won't understand it, but that's okay. Speaking...I have learned new words, but putting sentences together will still take some time.
As I mentioned earlier, I started teaching english conversation classes at a Libyan school. I teach 2 days a week and the other 3 days I am at the European school. It's a lot different than the European school, but similar in some ways. The way children are raised here somehow creates incredibly disrespectful students (at least when they are younger, the older ones are better). I went into a couple classes with 6/7 year-olds and WITH the teacher in the room they were yelling, running around, hitting each other, pulling hair...meanwhile the teacher is yelling at them to be quiet, taking a ruler to some of them and the kids don't listen nor care. I enjoy working with the older students (11-15 yrs) because they are more eager to listen to me and can actually understand me (most of the time) when I speak in English...the younger ones bascially know "Hi, how are you? I am fine, thank you", colors and numbers, so it makes it really difficult for me to control the classroom and I am not really fond of yelling all day and will not use a ruler (side note: in the 6/7 yr old classroom one of the students broke a stick of wood off her desk to give to me to use...there were nails sticking out of it, I had to hold onto it the entire day until I could properly dispose of it because I knew a student would take it and start hitting someone with it). I honestly don't know how they learn anything. The poor 11 year-old I mentioned earlier has been having a hard time dealing with all the noise at school, she said that swedish students are so calm and listen and respect their teachers...she isn't used to being yelled at all day and threatened.
Anyway, despite all that I am enjoying teaching at the school...it's good practice for me. :)
I feel like there was something else I wanted to write about, but it has slipped my mind. I hope everyone is doing well! :)
* Last week I connected with one of the students at the European school who had left the school for a year and was feeling a little lost upon returning (I could relate after leaving Linfield for a year). I spent over an hour listening to her and it was nice because I think she just needed someone to listen to her express herself.
* Yesterday I drove for the second time here (with someone else in the car, not alone...maybe someday?) and during rush hour! It was great! :)
* A few days ago I was at the athletic club I joined and was waiting for my cousin to pick me up. I looked out the window and saw a car that kind of looked like his, so I went outside. Once I opened the door I realized it wasn't his car, but I decided not to go back inside because it was SO nice and cool outside. I sat on the steps and decided to take out my journal, I was SO happy to be outside by myself. A few minutes later a woman from the club opened the door and asked me to come inside. I got up a little confused and walked to the door, she said I should sit inside, I asked her why and she said that it was the club's policy that I wait inside. I was bummed, but I went back inside.
* At the new school I am teaching at (I will talk more about it later) a girl came up to me after the first class and said she was so happy to hear me speak english because she had been living for the past 7 years in Sweden (she is about 11 years old) and misses talking in english (she speaks english, swedish and arabic!). She was telling how hard adjusting to life here has been for her and she started to cry. She had to go to class but I told her we could talk more later in the day if she had a break. She found me during her lunch break and I listened to her for about an hour, she cried the entire time. I felt so bad for her and didn't feel like I could do anything but validate her feelings. I couldn't say things will get better because it's the culture here and it's not going to change...hopefully it will just get better. She is such an intelligent young girl and cares so much about others and knows what's going on in the world (something that can probably be attributed to her education in Sweden and her parents). It made me reflect on the 16/17 year olds I deal with at the European school and I really think this 11 year-old is wiser than any of them. I could say so much more about her...she came to conclusions and realizations that some adults don't even come to in a lifetime. She told me she wants to do something big for her country and I think she will. :)
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My dad left about a week ago, so now the "real" work starts (as I can't rely on my dad to translate for me). I feel like I am understanding more Arabic now and if I don't understand something my family is usually able to use different vocabulary that they know I do understand. Sometimes I still won't understand it, but that's okay. Speaking...I have learned new words, but putting sentences together will still take some time.
As I mentioned earlier, I started teaching english conversation classes at a Libyan school. I teach 2 days a week and the other 3 days I am at the European school. It's a lot different than the European school, but similar in some ways. The way children are raised here somehow creates incredibly disrespectful students (at least when they are younger, the older ones are better). I went into a couple classes with 6/7 year-olds and WITH the teacher in the room they were yelling, running around, hitting each other, pulling hair...meanwhile the teacher is yelling at them to be quiet, taking a ruler to some of them and the kids don't listen nor care. I enjoy working with the older students (11-15 yrs) because they are more eager to listen to me and can actually understand me (most of the time) when I speak in English...the younger ones bascially know "Hi, how are you? I am fine, thank you", colors and numbers, so it makes it really difficult for me to control the classroom and I am not really fond of yelling all day and will not use a ruler (side note: in the 6/7 yr old classroom one of the students broke a stick of wood off her desk to give to me to use...there were nails sticking out of it, I had to hold onto it the entire day until I could properly dispose of it because I knew a student would take it and start hitting someone with it). I honestly don't know how they learn anything. The poor 11 year-old I mentioned earlier has been having a hard time dealing with all the noise at school, she said that swedish students are so calm and listen and respect their teachers...she isn't used to being yelled at all day and threatened.
Anyway, despite all that I am enjoying teaching at the school...it's good practice for me. :)
I feel like there was something else I wanted to write about, but it has slipped my mind. I hope everyone is doing well! :)
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