HW 18 - Health & Illness & Feasting

In islam it is customary to say a prayer before you eat, "bismillah al-rahman al-rahim". this prayer signifies allowing g-d or allah into your life making the devil or any bad thing go away. This feasting was a paticurlarly plain one because none of my family (other than immediate family) was able to attend. my aunt was sick and so she could not come down from and my cousins had there own party which we went to. Although we did eat at my cousins house for the "official" feast we came back home for a smaller family based feast. i felt that the religous aspect of this thanksgiving falls under the anti-body practice because it does not phsyically affect our body in any way.

The food was very pleasureable and did dominate the entire weekend. it was all focused on how the food was going to be prepared, what are we preparing, who are we preparing it for, what type of food we are preparing, and when we were going to prepare it. my mother was personally freaking out because of the amount of cooking we had to do and the fact that my dad attempted to make lasagna (which was a complete disaster). however the physical aspect of the break was very tense. When i attended the party at my cousins house you could clearly tell everything was very uncomfortable even though everyone was having a good time. my uncle and aunt were overly concerned with what every one was doing and all the guests were concerned with if they were doing anything wrong, which in all honesty was kind of funny.

Although the party was fun it was really kind of empty, not in the sense that no one was there (alot of people were the there), it was more in the sense that no family was there. the party was full of people i dont really know that well and some i did not know at all. my grandma is in egypt and is way to old to travel and my grandpa passed away so he definetly did not come. But this was all fine i have never had much of a relationship with either of them so its not like i was missing anything. You would think that my parents would be sad but there is not thanksgiving in egypt so its not something that they could say they remember doing with there parents.

The nutrition of the food was very important to me. I have been trying to stay a vegeterian ever since the food unit but it has been kind of difficult this break. I let my self take a little vacation from it so i could enjoy the turkey, but the other foods were important as well. i had my mom make salad and veggies along with grape leaves (my favorite food). Although this was a holiday based on eating like crazy there was no need for us to eat unhealthy food. i felt like the phsycality of the whole thing was very excting although we were a little sad and maybe a little uncomfortable the point was to be happy and i think that ended up happening.