Ramadan

Ramadan

Islamic year 1431

Sunset Wednesday August 11, 2010- Sunset Thursday September 9, 2010

I touched on Ramadan briefly last year as I caught the tail end of it. This year I was able to fully immerse myself in the holy month, fasting from food and water sunup to sundown, breaking fast with families in the neighborhood and thinking about how blessed I am to have all that I do in my life.

Ramadan is the 9^th month in the Islamic calendar and is a Holy month in which Muslims fast, pray and read the Qur’an, give charity, break fast, refrain from sexual activity during the daylight hours and maintain a state of purity throughout the month. For more information check out good ol’ Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramadan.

Every morning for 30 days I woke up at 3am. I would eat the pre-dawn meal of suhoor. I started out eating lentils and rice with a piece of fruit and maybe some nuts. I quickly realized I wouldn’t be able to keep that up the whole month despite the fact that it kept me full most of the day. I would also drink as much water as possible, usually aiming for 2-3 liters. I’d go back to bed around 4-4:30 depending on the time of the call to prayer, the Ahdan.

During the day Muslims generally stick to their same work schedules and live a normal life. For most of Ramadan I spent the time inside my house, taking it easy, trying to stay cool, napping, and generally distracting myself from the idea of food.

Not eating wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought it would be. I did feel hungry but not TOO hungry and it was certainly doable. I didn’t even get mean after not eating for a whole day alhamdulilah! The hard part was that I couldn’t go about my normal routine: waking up, making coffee and eggs, working on my computer while drinking coffee, filling hours of boredom with snacks…who am I kidding, it was just hard not being able to have coffee whenever I wanted!

Why would I fast if I’m not Muslim and I’m not becoming Muslim? One of my dear friends was accused by an American friend of just satisfying her desire for a little religious tourism, perhaps to make herself feel open-minded and experienced? I would say that this is rather insulting and quite far from the reality. There are several reasons I chose to fast. In the beginning it was in solidarity with my community, to know what they experience throughout the month and to feel comfortable breaking fast with families in my neighborhood. Something is not quite right about stuffing one’s face all day and then going to the neighbors’ house who have not eaten from 4 in the morning to about 7:15 at night where I live and then ceremoniously breaking the fast with them. The whole experience of breaking fast is much more fulfilling when you haven’t eaten all day and the sense of community and support that is created as you gather with friends, all of whom have been hungry all day is quite enriching.

As the month went on I wouldn’t say it necessarily got harder or easier. Some days were just hard and others were easier. It is amazing though to feel your minds abilities decrease rapidly and your energy level plummet more and more as the month goes on and the days build up. As I learned about why Muslims fast my reasons for fasting transformed to be more inline with theirs. As I felt the sensation of hunger day after day I started to think about what people who don’t ever have food feel like. Do you ever get used to this sensation? I can’t imagine. While I was never starving by any means, while I got to break fast at the end of everyday in good company, my privilege of having access to food and clean water day after day became very apparent to me…even if only from sundown to sunup, I could take something away from these feelings of hunger throughout the day. Muslims fast for many reasons one of which, is to feel empathy for those less fortunate than them. For me this became one of the meanings of Ramadan and what I would consider an enriching experience.

A second meaning of Ramadan for me was community. Both my host family and Mudir (boss) were out of town for the month of Ramadan. I didn’t really have anywhere to go but I couldn’t very well break fast by myself everyday. My neighbors however took me in completely. The invited me over every evening to break fast with them. I was also able to go to my host uncle and aunts house and visit my host family in Casablanca to share the experience of fasting and breaking fast with them. When we broke fast every night we’d start with a small glass of milk. As much as you’d like to chug water after not drinking the entire day, that is NOT the way its done. After a small glass of milk we would eat olives and dates. I love dates and would have to refrain from overindulging in the soft, sweet goodness that they are. We’d follow that in no specific order by tea, fat bread (a kind of Moroccan fried pizza,) msmn (fried bread,) hard-boiled eggs, shbekia (fried dough, drizzled with honey and sprinkled with sesame seeds,) and we’d finish everything with Harira (a tomato based soup with chick peas, cilantro, lentils, a noodle or two and perhaps some chicken liver.) After we broke fast we would go sit out side and enjoy the warm evenings. I played hide and seek, jumped rope and played Frisbee with the kids, which was a lot of fun.

30 days of not drinking water and not eating food during the day sounds really intimidating but I think it has been one of my most beneficial experiences in Morocco to date. I do have to note that there is no way I could have made it through the whole month without my dear Marjorie. We would get up together at 3am (her in Tiznit and me in Rose Valley,) skype together while we ate suhoor and give each other words of encouragement to get through the day. With out knowing that part of my fasting was in solidarity with her and that I couldn’t let her down I could make sure not to let myself down either.

This picture is of me, another PCV and a group of Moroccan youth breaking fast at a youth conference, at which I spent a week during Ramadan. The theme was "from an idea to a project)

Update from the Field

salaam all,

I'm sorry these updates have been sparse. I am counting on more internet when I finally settle in in a few months. Tons is going on and I wish I had words to describe all of it. I am in a little mountain town for training. It is chilly during the morning and significantly warmer come 3:00-4:00pm. There are afternoon thunderstorms but it all passes through pretty quickly (Sound Familiar?) 

I got to go on a hike the other day with several PCVs. It was a pretty easy trail with a little stream running next to the path. About half way through it started pouring rain, conveniently, right when we arrived at the top of a big hill where there happened to be an abandoned shack. We waited there for about 10 minutes for it to clear up. We could see the whole town which was sparkling form the reflection from all the water. As we started to hike down there was a double rainbow over the trail and over the town. That night we made spaghetti and real garlic bread! mmmm. There has since been a rule put in place that we aren't allowed to interact with PCVs until after we are sworn in as pcvs, so that they don't interrupt our training. Its too bad because they are such a wealth of knowledge but so it goes.

My family has been nice despite a few recent developments.The family is made up of a dad who is a principal at a school, the mom is the president of a co-op and they have three daughters. The oldest daughter, SouHaila is 15 and we have really hit it off. She is really patient with me and is pretty good about only speaking darija to me most of the time. The middle daughter is Oumaima and she is 10. She is a little shyer around me but equally as nice. The youngest daughter is DoHa and she is one year old.  With SouHaila and Oumaima we put on music or wedding videos and dance every time the parents leave. They always give me a scarf to tie around my waste and try and teach me how to shake my hips…It may just be a lost cause. I have been spending lots of time in the kitchen with SouHaila learning to cook and more so learning all of the names of different foods and cooking utensils.

My house has three floors and we live in the middle floor. On the top floor is where my language teacher lives and where I have classes during the day.  We have four hours of language classes in the morning then lunch and after that we have four hours of cultural training. Starting after Ramadan we will have a cook cooking for us and will be allowed a coffee/ tea break half way through each session. 

In the afternoons after the break we now go to the Dar Chebab (youth center) to get to know some of the youth in the area. Many parents don't like to let their children go to the dar chebab because they think it is just a place for boys and girls to go to hang out with one another which is unacceptable. It will be interesting to see how many people actually start showing up. On friday there is going to be "Peace Day." we are going to get together with another organization and some musicians to celebrate Peace. It will be the first time that we really get to interact with kids and we are all looking forward to it. 

Ramadan came to an end about a weak ago, but during Ramadan our schedule was a little off.I will explain more about Ramadan next year when it comes around but it is the 9^th month on the Islamic calendar and the most holy of months because it is when the Koran was revealed to Mohammed by the angel Gabriel. One of the 5 pillars of Islam is to fast from food and water, from sun up to sun down, during this month. I decided not to fast because of adjustment purposes and because of the current workload that we have. I am almost fasting by default because there is not anywhere open to buy food during the day. At sun down we have lFtour (breakfast) or in other words, the breaking of the fast. When we break fast we would eat a tomato-based soup with noodles and vegetables called Harira,  tmar (dates), Shbekia (a fried pastry drizzled with honey,) lzitune (olives,) and then we usually eat some kind of larger meal shortly after.

We also went to the Hammam recently. The Hammam - take one, Probably deserves an entry all of its own.  Hammams are public bathhouses.  You walk in, strip down to your underwear, and go sit in hot sauna like rooms.  All around the room are waterspouts with hot water. You bring your own bucket, stool to sit on, and special concoctions of soaps and creams. I don’t know if it was just because of Ramadan or what but the place was packed. I could hardly move around without stepping on someone.  There were tons of little kids accompanying their mom’s and I’m not sure how they didn’t just pass out from the heat. We started in a hot room and my host sister gave me a black, sandpaper like glove to scrub my skin. I scrubbed my arms, legs and chest for at least 20 minutes and it didn’t seem like much was happening. Then my host sister took the glove from me and started scrubbing my arms and back and huge rolls of gray, dead skin, began peeling off of my body. Apparently I wasn’t doing it hard enough. After that we went to a little cooler room to wash off. While we were there a couple of my host sister’s friends were there and kept trying to talk to me. My host sister got really defensive and told me not to talk to them. Apparently one of them is in love wither her “love” and so obviously I shouldn’t be taking to her. I think I will have to wait until Hammam – take two, before I know what I really think of it.

I think that is mostly what I have for an update this far. Tomorrow we get to meet up with all the other trainees. We haven't seen them in a couple weeks and it is always fun to get together and exchange stories and experiences. Other than that I think we have about five weeks left before we swear in and become official Peace Corps Volunteers. It is all very exciting. I hope you are all well back home. I'm thinking about you!