your sorry eyes; they cut through bone

Today was one of the biggest festival days of Dasain. We got up bright and early at 6 to go to the "goat shopping complex". Did I mention that the big part of todays celebration was animal sacrifices? Well it is. They sacrifice animals to the gods, and then also to most motor vehicles in the city. We had received one goat from the director's mother last night, but that was an offering to the gods, and we needed to purchase another to bless the school bus with before we went to the temple. After waiting two hours for the bus, we made it to the goat shopping complex, which is really just a roadside filled with hundreds of goats of all shapes, sizes, and colors. We selected our goat and packed him into the school bus with the other goat. There was pretty much every type of goat transport imaginable - goats strapped onto motorbikes, goats packed into timpos, goats packed into vans, or cars, in pick-up beds, or being walked on leashes.

Having secured our two goats, we took a twenty minute or so busride up to the temple, which had an amazing view. We were out of Kathmandu so we were in these beautiful terraced hills speckled with small villages. When we finally made it up to the temple, we strategically parked our bus in a small stream and then de-boarded to go see the sights at the temple. The goats had a small reprieve as we walked around and saw all of their relatives being butchered. The temple was the busiest I have ever seen it, with a massive line of people stretching up to the road, and completely filling the temple. There seemed to be an assembly line sort of process, where you took your chicken or goat and bathed him in the holy water, then took him into the center of the temple, where he was beheaded, and then over to the butchers, where they de-furred and feathered, and gutted them. The de-furring process seemed to consist of dipping them into a vat of hot water where the skin and fur was loosened, and then heaving them out onto the pavement, where the fur was stripped off using a knife, hands, and a hot spade to sear off any remaining bits. The goat was then moved down to the river where it was cleanly gutted. The goats were then packed in pieces into shopping bags, or various other packaging whereupon people took them home to eat.

After witnessing the mass livestock genocide occurring at the temple, we returned to the bus, where it was time for our two unfortunate goats to be beheaded. An overall unpleasant site, the two poor goats were decapitated :( and then the blood and scraps of fur, as well as marigolds, were used to bless the bus. The worst part of the sacrifice was how the goats, for a full five minutes after death, continued to twitch and move their legs as though they were trying to run away from fate. After watching this spectacle, we were all blessed with a necklace and a tikka (the red paste that is dotted on the forehead). Tikka's do not work exceptionally well with bangs I must say. We had another 30 minutes to kill while our goats were butchered, so to avoid watching this as well, we hiked up to a temple higher on the mountain. I had the presence of mind to not try jogging the few hundred steps this time.

After our goats were finally finished being butchered, they were loaded onto the bus, where we got to spend a twenty minute ride back to the city, trying to ignore the sloshing bucket of goat blood precariously placed in the front of the bus. Upon arriving back at our flat, food preparations immediately began, and did not cease until maybe 7 o clock, when all of the food that had been prepared from our recently deceased goat, began to get served to all guests (all volunteers and then some. Lots of people). We had mutton soup, skewers of mutton, mutton "mix" (this included lots of unidentifiable bits of goat - esophagus, liver, kidney, lung, etc), paneer, as well as rice and other veggies. I declined to partake of the goat, not feeling quite up to eating something that had until 6 hours ago, been quite alive, and quite cute in fact (our goat was adorable - all black with white stocking feet and an orange bandanna. Killing it was not top on my list of things to do). Most of the goat that had been cooked did get finished off however, and after everything was eaten, conversation and music filled the rest of the evening.

Anyway. Today has been a long day, having had to get up at 6 am to go "goat shopping", plus the shock of seeing animals beheaded in front of me, so it's time to turn in.
Night!