Happy Fasika! (Cow Killing)

So my next meal would end up really driving home that I am in another culture that occasionally I'll think I understand, but will inevitably be proven wrong. Although, it was a very different experience I would not say it was as amusing as the first one.

I joined my landlords family for dinner and it was a much more relaxed affair compared to the last one. They were not as dressed up nor did they offer the fancy drink (ouzo) instead just cracking me a beer when I got there. The food was essentially the same as the last meal although there was a vegetable inhabited variant of tibs that was quite good. There were a number of extended family visiting and among them a couple who had recently been married. The family has apparently not seen them since the wedding and they had brought a copy of their wedding video with them. So they decide to put it on while we're eating. I am at first quite curious in a cultural sense to see the differences between our wedding ceremonies.

The first minute of the video was a quick pan over the kitchen which showed lots of women hurriedly making food for the wedding's feast. The next minute was a pan over a bunch of cows which were going to be eaten at the feast. The next twenty (20) minutes were the aforementioned cows being slaughtered in graphic detail at which point I promptly lost my appetite although the family seemed happily entranced by the proceedings which contained such lovely images as cows throats being slit, their entrails being removed, and then it happening again to another cow. After this had passed I politely left.

You're not in Kansas anymore, Jordie.