After two productive days of BSID-IV training on Monday and Tuesday, everyone had the day off on Wednesday and Thursday to celebrate the Eid holiday! This Eid holiday, Eid al-Adha, is the second Eid holiday of the lunar year. This holiday is known as the “feast of the sacrifice” and comes at the end of the Hajj, which is an annual pilgrimage taken by Muslims at the holy city of Mecca. During this celebration, goats, cows, and buffalo are sacrificed in the name of Allah.
I felt very lucky to be invited to spend the holiday with Saima and her family in her village. Saima explained to me that in their village when someone buys an animal to sacrifice, they keep one third of the meat, share one third of the meat with their family on the day of Eid, and give one third of the meat to the poor. The notion of giving to those less fortunate is a central theme of the Eid al-Adha holiday. During this celebration it’s also common for women to dress up and to get henna tattoos drawn on their hands, which was a festivity I was excited to take part in! We ended the day with a dip in the irrigation pump down the road, which Saima fondly refers to as a “Pakistani swimming pool”.
Once the Eid celebration was over, we went straight back to work on Friday and Saturday to field test the BSID-IV tool. As the tool is rather time-intensive, we spent a lot of time working out the quirks and figuring out how to present everything in a way that was interesting to the child and not too tedious or tiring. After one more day of field testing on Monday, we will run the full operational pilot with all of our tools on Tuesday and Wednesday. This process has been such an incredible learning experience for me and the team, and I’m excited to see it all come together this week before I head back to America!
