Goats' Heads and the Second Day of Eid

What I woke up to this morning.

Chopped meat. 

Liver

          I awoke this morning to find a lot of roughly chopped goat meat piled in our kitchen. I missed the sacrificing and the initial butchering! Luckily, there was still plenty of work to do! After a breakfast of milk tea and sweets, we began working on the meat, excepting the intestines and the testes. My host dad set to work removing the meat form the bones, while the rest of us chopped it into pieces. I was given the liver and heart to cut up because they were much easier, and I was the worst at cutting.

Goat intestines, which I'm told my
host mother will cook. 

Meat for the freezer

    As I was being handed my first goat organ, I was hoping that given the recentness of it's death, it wouldn't still be warm, it wasn't. Goat liver is gelatinous, almost a cross between meat and flan, which made it very easy to cut, but also made me a little squeamish. The heart looked more like regular meat, and brought me back to bio class sophomore year, when someone brought in a sheep's heart and lungs for us to look at.

Fresh goat head.

Seasoned goat head, before being cooked.

      After the cutting was done some of the scraps were put into a pot and cooked for lunch, the rest were frozen, and the neatly cut, uniformly sized, meat was set aside for sho'wa.
       My host mother then turned to the goat's head, or as it turned out, heads. Many people don't want the goat's head, so some people collect them and sell them. We ended up with two extra heads. My host mom rubbed a mixture of spices and garlic all over the goats' heads, and then stuffed the spices into it's nostrils, mouth, ears, and neck. At first watching this, I was off put, then I remembered how a turkey is stuffed and felt much better.
         My host mother then made rahal, Omani bread, with the help of my little sister. Our lunch became cooked meat and rahal. I don't know if I've ever eaten meat the same day it was killed, but it was delicious. Except the liver, this was my first time trying liver, and I disliked the texture and taste.

Rahal

       The rest of the day was restful, after lunch most of my family took a nap, watched TV, and relaxed. Around five we had tea and more rahal. My little sister discovered kittens and their protective mother under our car, and my older sister and I reluctantly turned to our neglected homework.