Observations

I just got back from my first Kurban. I won’t give you the details of the sacrifice as it might be disturbing, however, I will tell you what I thought about as I witnessed from the balcony. It felt a little like watching an opera from the box office.

First, I thought about what little I know about the Mithras cult and its rituals, of purification through bloodletting, and how dangerous, sticky, and smelly the process must have been, and how very manly those Roman warriors must have felt.

I thought about ritualized community bonding. Sacrificing a heifer is not a one man job. There is necessary cooperation and knowledge passed from one generation to another. Hold this, cut here, no like that, wait, slowly slowly, stop. Health to your hands.

I thought about wintertime wood cutting as a family, hauling and loading logs onto the truck, stacking them in the garage, chopping, then bringing them into the house. Don’t tell anyone, but I really liked hauling and stacking and chopping.

I thought about being an observer. Here in Turkey, I usually listen more than contribute to conversations, though I’m able to understand more and more, slowly slowly. I can often follow, but by the time I can throw in my two cents, the subject has already changed. Oddly, this role of observer is almost the same one I used to play during holidays at home, watching and listening to my own language, seldom if ever participating in the traditional, competitive and dreaded (by me) game of charades. Here, as there, I’m more comfortable being the observant outsider.