If I took a holiday

Today is a stat holiday. Holiday is sikuku (day is siku).

Today is Eid. It is a Muslim day of sacrifice that coincides with the end of the Hajj. The Hajj is the pilrimage to Mecca and N's sister went this year. This is a "big deal" (I know you know this). She felt she was called this year. This is one of those things that if events conspire to prevent you from going you don't work through it. It wasn't meant to be that year and Allah doesn't want you to go.

When N's sister was here last month N was telling us about the women that cover up except for their eyes. That is fairly common to see here - perhaps 2-3% of women. That is not allowed on the Hajj and if women do cover their faces they will be told to uncover their faces so that God can see it. (it was at this point that N told us there is no prescription against drinking in the Koran, rather, after some years it was decided that you couldn't be drunk and talk to God because you would talk nonsense. So really you just can't be drunk at prayer time. There is a lot of prayer time)

Eid commemerates Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son to God. It is based on the lunar calendar so the date changes every year. This year it was marked as Monday in the calendars here. It was celebrated yesterday by all the other Muslim countries, and today we're celebrating it here. So the date was changed - ahh, astrophysics why are you so arbitrary? Also, I guess the government here determines that it's the day following whatever the event of the moon is while everyone else is determining it was the day of the night.

Okay - I googled. This is from wikipedia: Each year, Eid al-Adha (like other Islamic holidays) falls on one of two different Gregorian dates in different parts of the world, due to the fact that the boundary of crescent visibility is different from the International Date Line. Interesting. But not enough to send me looking to see what countries do it which way and compare their longitudes.

In honour of Abraham (who sacrificed a ram rather than his son), it is tradition that people will slaughter the best of their herd and keep a third, give a third to a neighbour, and give a third to the poor. Yay, me. I'm a neighbour. N dropped off a very generous serving of goat last night. Today she will be taking in some friends and family visitors but not everyone like some do ("who wants all those people in their house?").