This was the first year when I went to butcher shops for Kurbani of Eid-ul-Azha (Annual religious sacrifice). We deposited $500 to a butcher shop in Pipersville, PA to get a bull of around 1800lbs. That was a Thursday and he told our organizer that he only had big cows (2100lbs or bigger) and would bring some smaller ones on Tuesday. I drove there on Tuesday along with our organizer to select our sacrificial animal but his new story was that the cows are still not here and would be by the evening. However, other people present there weren’t happy about the weight of the cows. They thought the butcher was inflating the weight of the cows by at least 400 pounds. Our organizer went again the next (third time for him) day and selected a cow for us which the butcher claimed 1800lbs. He also doubted whether the cow/bull was actually 1800lbs. Since it was the day before the Eid and already deposited $500 he had no choice but to accept the butcher’s words. He told the butcher that we would come to slaughter the cow on Saturday (third day of Eid-ul-Azha). The butcher’s response was, “not a problem; may be you would be only person on that day”.

On Saturday, 26 September 2015 we went there around 8:30AM and saw many people were already waiting and the whole place was a big mess; trash were everywhere and the two portable toilet were filled with human waste and paper towel/tissue. No one from the butcher shop was there. Later I learned they were open till 3:30Am previous night. We wrote our name on a piece of paper and our serial number was 9. Then the bad news started to reveal. People who couldn’t sacrifice their cows on Thursday after waiting the whole day came on Friday and those who couldn’t do it on Friday got serial number ahead of us and someone said that he saw a guy with yesterday’s 49 serial. That means our actual serial number would be 58. We started to realize it would be impossible to for us to sacrifice before evening prayer.

During that time someone said some people yesterday went to Quakertown, PA and was able to do their sacrifice within two hours. I took the address from him and wanted to check out the place sinnce it was only 20 miles away from that place. I left for the place immediately along with my father and uncle (mama). Within 40 minutes we were there – it was totally opposite of what we experienced from the morning. It was a very big and clean place. They had two prayer places – one for men and one for women. Bread, cheese, meat slices for sandwich, and tea/coffee were free for the customers. I spoke to one of the guys there and he showed us cows and we chose one of 1185lbs which looked bigger that the 1800lbs of the first place. However, their price was higher $2/lb as opposed to $1.20/lb of the first place.

Anyway, we would be able to do the sacrifice right away if we wanted. Therefore, I started calling my partners to give up $500 (about $71 per person) at the first place and come here to do the kurbani. After few more calls and waiting more than an hour all of my partners arrived. They were impressed by the place and thanked me. They went to see the bull and agreed to take it. Within an hour and half after that we got our meat in seven different boxes. It was quick, professional and satisfying despite the price difference. We went the first place one last time to get back our money but they were insisting that they would be able to do our kurbani before sunset. We calculated that even if that was true we would be getting our meat around midnight the earliest. We offered to take back only $300 or 2 two goats for that money but they refused. We left and wish to never go back there again.