Now that
I’ve passed through a third (ten days) of Ramadan it seems like as good a time
as any to give some description of what it is like to not eat or drink any food
or water from sun up to sun down during the middle of summer in Africa for a
month. As you can imagine with that
introduction, a one-word description would be “hard.” Since thinking in complete sentences is one
of the first things to go by the wayside I’ll leave “hard” as the basic
description. Hard, but not necessarily
because of the lack of eating and drinking.
It’s the lack of work, the feelings of uselessness that are really
overwhelming. Not that the lack of food
makes that any easier, other than the first two days, when I was getting over a
cold and so took a couple of sips of water, I’ve been fasting legitimately,
without a single drop of water all day.
One thing that gets me are the near misses, how I’ll finish a task, go
to pour myself a glass and then say “oh right, can’t do this for five more
hours. Ugh.”
Not that there is very much in the
way of task completion during Ramadan. I
find that my regular day goes something like this. Wake up, tired, around seven-thirty or
eight. I’d like to sleep later, since I
go to bed late, but for whatever reason I haven’t been able to sleep later than
eight-thirty any day, and most days it’s earlier. Sometimes I lie around and half sleep for
another hour, but usually I find that doesn’t get anywhere so I read for a few
hours in an attempt to wake myself up.
Some days I’m successful in getting myself to a state where I’m awake
enough to focus on important things, and then I spend a couple of hours
studying Arabic, or reading materials from Peace Corps, or trying to think of
how I’ll approach teaching lessons in the Fall.
Most days I can’t get myself focused enough to do this, and so I just
read more or play the guitar or (if I’m feeling a little more energy) I go over
to the artisanal cooperative to hang out with my host mother and a couple of
the older ladies as they sew. Usually by
this point thirst is already starting to disassemble my Darija, so our
conversations stay pretty basic. If I
have gone out I make sure I’m back home through the hot part of the day, since
there is nothing going on outside. I
usually kill this time by reading more.
One day, during the merciful few days before the heat rose again, I got
the crazy idea that, since it was a reasonable temperature and I didn’t feel that hungry or thirsty, I should do
something and so I took a hike in the hills around town. I found a couple of vistas that are just as
beautiful as any around Azrou, albeit a little harder to get to then any of the
fantastic places up there. Despite these
discoveries, the walk was a terrible idea that I will not repeat this month
(although I will, frequently, after).
Even on a cooler day the three-hour walk completely wiped me out and I
lay around my house in a daze after until breakfast.
At around four or five the first
vague stirrings of life begin around town.
I usually go out and relax in the garden with friends and students, but
some days it’s still too hot so I go to my host family’s house instead. One day a friend and I helped a second friend
move stuff from his old apartment to a new one, but the three of us all
regretted that by the end and collapsed into the garden. There are two really dedicated advanced
students who want to practice their English, so Wednesdays and Saturdays we’ve
had conversation sessions in the Dar Chebab for a little while. Like my Darija, their English is suffering
from lack of food and water, but I think they’re moving a little forward. By around six or six-thirty the garden, the
parking lot where some crazy men play soccer, and the market where people can
buy fruit for breakfast are bustling.
However, by around seven-thirty no one is in the streets anymore as we
all wait anxiously for the call to prayer.
The call (l-mghrb) starts exactly at sundown and people break the fast. Traditionally most people start their lftor (breakfast) with dates (timr).
I break tradition and usually gulp down a big glass of water before my
first date. From there the fare varies a
little bit from family to family (so far I’ve broken the fast with two of my
students’ families, my landlord, my mudir,
my tutor, and my host family, of which my host family is the one I go to most
often, though they’ve all said I’m welcome everyday). Some families focus heavily on the sweets,
though thankfully traditional Ramadan sweets are more often sweetened with
honey than with sugar. Almost every
family serves shpeckia, a twisty
pastry drenched in honey. Most of these
sweet families also serve milk or a milk based asir (juice), usually banana.
Other families favor more savory treats, like fat bread (xubz shhma), which is bread baked with
onions, tomatoes, and animal fat, or sharia
(rice noodles). These families tend to
serve asir without milk, usually
orange, though I’ve also had carrot, and, once, lemonade. Most families also serve some fruit. Grapes are common, and cactus fruit is
universal. Once you’ve stuffed yourself
on all of this (all the while drinking copious amounts of water, juice, and
tea) they serve the harira, a
traditional Moroccan spiced tomato soup with chickpeas and sharia. Inshahallah my host mother will teach me to make it later today!
After gorging, everyone falls into
a food stupor and drift off a little while watching T.V. At around nine or nine-fifteen the muedin (the man who makes the call to
prayer) calls l-aesha, the last call
of the day. Ramadan is a time when
people really focus on their faith, so there is a brief period of time
afterwards when a lot of people pray.
It’s only after then that the cafés start to get lively, just like during
the days before Ramadan. Most days I’ve
met my friends at our favorite café, though even after breaking the fast both
their English and my Darija are not where they normally are. After a bit of tea we go and hang out with
students in the garden. Some days I skip
the café and go straight to the garden with my guitar, acting pied piper like
around the children, who are not at all used to live music and, therefore,
fascinated. Sometimes the younger kids
are too fascinated, they come close and bang into the guitar, knocking it out
of tune, so I generally sit myself in the middle of an older group who act as a
buffer so the younger ones can see that they should listen, but not touch. I had hoped that by bringing my guitar to the
garden other musicians would come out of the woodwork, but so far it has been a
no go and I remain my town’s sole nightly beatnik. After awhile I let the music die down and we talk
for hours. Since it’s Ramadan, and
religion is on their minds, they ask a lot about Christianity and tell me a lot
about Islam. This lasts a long time and
I usually don’t get home until around one-thirty or two in the morning,
sometimes later. Most Moroccans wait,
but at that point I’m exhausted so I usually eat sohr (the last meal before the fast) then. Usually for me it’s just some fruit
(sometimes accompanied with the peanut butter mom and dad sent!), but a few
days ago I stopped being lazy and cooked myself up a big stir fry, which has
lasted the last couple days and will probably last a few more. I also start to chug water. I’m asleep by three at the latest, well
before the morning prayer (l-sobh)
since I know I won’t be sleeping in as much as I want.
So that’s a Ramadan day. A time when nothing gets done. I’d like to say that this is exacerbated for
me since I’m a non-Muslim and have never done this before, but the plain fact
is that with those occasional classes I’m teaching, and the bits and pieces of
work I’m doing before I get overwhelmed by hunger, thirst, and exhaustion I’m
actually as productive or more so than the average person in my town during
Ramadan. I wish I could get more done,
but it really does just become impossible to focus on anything. Ramadan in winter is supposedly a more busy
time, since they spend less time not eating and it’s cooler, but summer Ramadan
is pretty much a month when Morocco, at least rural Morocco, doesn’t work.
Despite this, or perhaps because of
it, it is a very spiritually fulfilling time for most Moroccans. Even the concept of time shifts. During the rest of the year Moroccans go by
the clock, just like people in the West, although during day lights saving time
there is some disagreement as to whether to use DLS, the new time, or just
stick with the old time. The government,
and people who work with it, go by new time, but a lot of the older generation
uses old time. During Ramadan the clock
is set back, temporarily ending new time (and thereby settling the old time/new
time debate), but people shift to an even older way of telling time. Almost no one talks about what hour it is, or
what time to meet somewhere. Things are
done around the calls to prayer. We’ll
eat at l-maghrb. Meet me after l-aesha. I didn’t even wake
up until duhr (the noon time prayer). At asr
(midafternoon prayer), oh, I wasn’t doing anything.
There you have it, a non-Muslim’s
take on the experience of Ramadan. It
actually is an interesting experience, and, despite my frustration at my
inability to get any work done, I like the challenge. I also like seeing the holiday spirit take
hold of the country. I’m glad I decided
not to work at any camps during Ramadan this year and just stayed in site, it
helps my community integration. People
see me fasting, I’m meeting tons of new youth with my evening guitar sessions,
and I’m getting much closer with the families I break the fast with. That being said, next summer, when I’m more
part of the community and integration will not be a paramount goal, I think I
will try to work at one of the camps that occur during Ramadan. I’ll still keep the fast, but hopefully feel
more productive. Then, once the camp
ends, I might use that as an opportunity to take a trip out of country and beat
the heat and the fast. But that’s a year
from now, and who knows how I’ll feel when it actually comes around!
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