Our Four-Day Holiday

We just finished a four-day holiday that is about as big here as Christmas or Easter in America. The holiday is intended to commemorate Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son, it translates locally into a great family and friends time off from work. Although we weren’t off the hook for language study, the week did bring us some variety.

Day One:
While our friends and neighbors were off sacrificing their sheep and cooking and distributing the meat, I cleaned. That’s a holiday tradition, but unlike my neighbors who cleaned every nook and cranny all week last week in preparation, I just spent a few hours Monday morning. And unlike last year, we didn’t witness any of the sacrificing part of the tradition. Throughout the day we answered the doorbell to hand out candy to the groups of children who came around wishing us “may your holiday be blessed.” In the afternoon, some friends came over for tea and sweets. We had a great visit (and the kids did fine with no nap).

Day Two:
We pretty much hung out and did normal stuff all day. Then in the evening we decided to go out and find something interesting to do. There’s this word in this language that means “to go about, to walk about; to visit, to tour (round)…to go for a walk.” It’s a nifty little word, and we’ve anglicized it—“to gez.” So we decided to gez. After driving around for a bit we determined that this city after dark on a holiday night is about like Bel Air (MD) during Thanksgiving dinner—there’s not much to do. We ended up walking the mall and getting ice cream at McD’s. Not a bad gez if you ask me!

Day Three:
Daytime day three we decided to take Matthew to the park, one of his favorite activities. Although the sun was trying to shine when we set out, we got just about the weather you Maryland readers would expect for mid-December—cold and mizzly. Matthew didn’t care on bit. That evening we went to a gathering of believers at a friend’s home. We spent awhile singing praise music. Then they started a sort of hot potato game where the penalty for getting caught was singing a solo or dancing. It was hilarious to see this multi-generational group playing. Then they split into groups and improvised/performed skits from the book of Luke. So Mike and I had our debut acting in the local language.

Day Four:
We finished out the holiday with an engagement party. Engagements here are a big deal, with a party not to different from a wedding reception at times. The ceremony involves trading rings that are connected with a red ribbon, which is then cut to finalize the engagement. Red is the traditional color for the formal dress the bride-to-be wears. This young lady and gentleman are believers, so their event had some special twists including prayer and a brief speech by the pastor. Typically any local party lasts well into the night with music and dancing; loss of electricity cut this one a little short. But we still had a chance to eat baklava and cake, and Mike had a chance to participate in some traditional dancing (sorry, no picture of that one).

(tea-glass picture credit: http://workingthesilkroad.blogspot.com/2007_08_01_archive.html)