Eed Sweets

This last Eed was the sugar eed and I definitely ate way too much sugar! When you visit people you may only be there a few minutes but in those few minutes you'll have a glass of coke, a few pieces of candy and a few cookies. I always slip the candy in my purse and give it to beggar kids later, but that's just me.

So the local people go visit everyone that they know during the Eed just to say 'Happy Eed' and due their duty. One of my friends went to 23 houses in one day...I can't even imagine. But he also said that it's only twice a year that he has to see his extended family so he doesn't mind...sort of sounds like how some Americans talk about Thanksgiving and Christmas, huh?

The point of this whole thing though. The well-off people buy their cookies and sweets. The poor people make their own and I got to experience some of my goat women (sounds a little strange) making their own. There were 5 women who got together at one lady's house, mixed up their stuff and then laid them out on these huge trays that are about 5 feet across.

The people out there don't have their own ovens. They do all their cooking over these little tin boxes with charcoal in them. I'll get a picture of those later, but there are shops that have ovens and they charge people to cook their stuff for them. So in this picture you can see the women with the trays of the sweets on their heads taking them to the oven shop, then their kids are carrying the empty trays where they'll put the finished sweets. It's a little hard to see...it's also a little hard to take pictures of things that you're technically not supposed to be taking pictures of...sorry!
Also during the Eed all the well-off people buy all new things. New furniture, new clothes, new dishes, new everything. I have friends who completely repaint and remodel their house once a year for the Eed. Then everything is decorated with lights and tinsel, etc. Poorer people can't really afford to be decorating and I'm not real sure how you would remodel a mud house, but this is a picture of a popular decoration with our goat families. This is a plastic yogurt cup cut in the shape of a star and then stuck on the wall. They were all over the place! The women said that their kids were really excited about the Eed and wanted to put up some decorations, so they made these...kind of reminds me of little kids getting excited for Christmas and cutting out paper snowflakes or making paper chains. It's pretty cute!

So I guess this year I somehow saw all the similarities on how we celebrate holidays in America and in the Sandbox. See all your family, eat too much, say Happy Eed (Merry Christmas) to everyone you see, make all kinds of cookies and sweets before the big day, , and then the kids get all excited and spend their days off of school making their own decorations and sticking them to the walls...if only they had turkey...