Goats, Camels, Sheep, and Mountains on Eid

Saturday, October 4^th, 2014

Post by Kim

Adam and I decided to delay our trip to Muscat to possibly next weekend; instead, we went sightseeing in Al Ain for this Eid day; we went to the camel/goat market near Bawadi Mall and the Jebel Hafeet Mountain for a view of the city.

For those of you who may be unfamiliar to Eid, it is a big religious celebration for Muslims that is also known as the “Festival of the Sacrifice”.  It commemorates Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his own son, Ishmael, at God’s command.  In this story, God then provides Abraham with a lamb to take Ishmael’s place.  Those of Christian or Jewish faith may remember this story as Abraham and Isaac.  In the modern-day festival, they slaughter the sheep (or other domestic animals like goats and camels) in remembrance of this story.

At the camel/goat market today, we saw lots and lots of goats and sheep in pens, ready to be purchased and later slaughtered.  Sheeps were being taken away in pickup trucks.  Adam and I were surprised to see men tying up sheep by their feet, then throwing them live in the trunk of their sedan!  I wanted to take pictures of this, but wasn’t sure that it would be appropriate; so, instead, I am showing you a picture of goats in the pen.

Local market people called Adam and me and insisted that we come take pictures of their camels.  From talking with other expats, we knew to expect requests for payment; as the expats recommended, we paid no more than 50 dirhams (or around 20 US dollars) for being allowed in the pen to take pictures.  Here is an example of a building/pen where the camels are kept.

And here we are with the camels.

The market men also showed us a cute baby camel.  When I came up to the pen, the baby camel immediately went up to the side of the cage (probably anticipating some food), so I took a picture of it behind rather than through the bars.

From our understanding, the camels are bought for various purposes: for racing, for transportation, for meat, and for their milk.  Adam asked the men how much one goes for typically, and they said 20,000 dirhams (or 5,500 US dollars).

Later that afternoon, we went up to Jebel Hafeet Mountain for a view of Al Ain.  Adam and I had previously been there with some friends at nighttime, but our old camera was not really working well in the dark.  Here are the various pictures from today from up there and on the road.

 

Overall, we had a really enjoyable Eid day.  It was really interesting to see hot, unsanitized, and traditional scenes in comparison to the cool, modern, and sterilized malls throughout the country.  I guess these just highlight how the UAE has a mix of old and new, and how much it has changed over the span of fifty years with the discovery of oil.

Eid Mubarak to all our Muslim friends!