The specificity of Eid El Adha this year is that it will last four days, swallowing up a whole weekend in its path. Happy then, the Juilletists who will see their holidays extended. But to see what these four days could be worth for many of us.
First, there are those who will have to remain on the alert throughout this period and whom we will never cease to pay tribute to for their mobilization and what they render as services to the Nation, our Royal Armed Forces (FAR ), the Royal Gendarmerie, the General Directorate of National Security and derivatives, so to speak, Civil Protection in all its components, the Auxiliary Forces as well as the regional and local authorities… In short, all the public service actors who will have to ensure permanence so that Eid El Adha takes place in the best possible conditions for all Moroccan citizens.
But Eid Al Adha, beyond the spiritual character, is not simply summed up in the beast… but in everything that orbits around it, purchases of clothes, spices, utensils… The party turns a parallel economy by frenetically animating the Kingdom’s souks and markets and by punctuating a whole host of other related activities. For this purpose, we will mention the temporary stands and stalls set up in the working-class neighborhoods where this rite is unavoidable.
That said, if during this period the feast of sacrifice is an opportunity for family reunions, each year and a few days before Eid Al Adha, it will see several small seasonal trades flourish as a corollary to the ritual of sacrifice in cities and villages of the Kingdom. The “sheep festival” invites itself from its improvised jobs specific to this circumstance. It is also an opportunity for followers of the informal sector to collect a few pennies on this Eid Al Adha. Far from its religious character, Eid Al Adha has always had as its background temporary trades which abound and which improve the daily life of people’s goods.
It ranges from knife sharpeners, carriers, charcoal, straw, plastic bag, kitchen utensil, onion, spice, brazier and I don’t know what else that could be used … Even the day of the sacrifice is not spared, it is an opportunity to see the occasional butchers slaughtering and skinning the animals or doing the cutting when others light fires on the street corners to clean and grill the heads of the beasts sacrificed on this day.
In history, the place of choice goes to butchers, whether they are one-day or professional, because it is a boon for some (the informal) to make a little windfall and make this particular day profitable ( slaughtering a sheep is worth at least between 250 DH and 400 DH) and for the others, the professionals, to generate significant income by cutting up and skinning the carcass before closing shop for a few days. It is at all “beneficial” and net of taxes for all those who were willing to sacrifice themselves for the time of a sacrifice.
Eid El Adha is also the spaces for selling sheep, the exhibition of all kinds of accessory products essential to the sacrifice and of high use during this celebration and finally the informality that it generates through the sharpeners-grinders, sellers of hay or straw, spices, coal, plastic bags, kitchen utensils, as well as transporters…
