Butchers and Blood
By Nadjib Aktouf
1 Jan 2009
Eid Al-Adha is the Islamic holiday when Muslims around the world stop working, visit each others' families, and usually sacrifice animals. Sheep is the traditional and most popular choice among people.
The municipality of Amman in Jordan set up a huge sheep market during the week of Eid Al-Adha. Located at the edge of the capital, the huge lot held at least 15 booths of sheep vendors, each vendor had between 20 to 50 sheep in a pen. In the middle of the lot was the slaughtering and skinning area for butchers. After you selected your sheep and paid for it, you would escort your sacrifice to the butchering area. There were mini stations with 2 to 3 professionals conducting their designated tasks: slaughtering, skinning, cleaning the insides, and wrapping up.
The market was muddy, filthy, smelled like guts, and occasionally you would step on a hoof. Despite that, it was impressive to see how well organized it was. From a distance it looked like utter chaos - but once inside, you could notice that everything was micro-managed and ran like clock-work.
Below are a few photos I took of butchers at the sheep market on December 8, 2008.
