I decided at the beginning of Ramadan that I wanted to try and observe the fast for the experience of it and solidarity reasons. I figured Ramadan was just a buffed up version of Lent, of which I have had many years of training, and over a million people around the world are doing it. How hard could it be?
Here's the one unambiguous rule:
No eating or DRINKING while the sun is up.
I ignore the no drinking water. I tried it for a day and vetoed living in the desert with dehydration hallucinations for a month. So, I started by only half observing the fast. Still, food is the cornerstone to my positive, approachable personality. If I am late for a meal I get a little cranky. So, going from sun up to sun down with our eating is intense.
The routine of the day begins with the call of the mosque at around 4:30 am, signaling the women to wake up and start preparing the morning porridge. The next call is around 5:30, telling everyone to wake up and eat the milk and cous-cous porridge. Then the final morning call around sunrise, to make sure you've finished eating for the day. After a short crawl out of bed to sleepily stuff porridge in my face, I go back to bed until a more respectable hour like 8.
The morning is "productive" time. The heat doesn't make you want to weep pure salt tears yet and you have a little energy from your early morning porridge. So, this is when chores are done, laundry by hand, sweeping the sand courtyard, filling the water pots for the children to drink, going to market, and gardening.
My garden is awesome, by the way. I extend a challenge to anyone interested in "La Guerre de Jardin". Your improved variety seeded garden vs my desert miracle. I secretly ate the most delicious, breaking Ramadan, self grown watermelon in my bathroom. If only my spinach and carrots would sprout...
Around noon life stops. It's to hot to do anything and the early morning porridge calories are gone. Now it's time to sprawl around in the shade. Suggested activities include napping, watching leaves, talking about how hot it is, talking about how hungry you are. I have done lots of Ramadan reading. One of main topics of conversation in the village is the difficulty of fasting. I have gotten mad street credit for my fasting.
Around 6 the women start to prepare the break fast and dinner. The mosque calls around 7:30 to signal that we can break the fast. Breaking fast is deliciously patron. I pack my gurggling stomach with cold water, bissap juice, dates, coffee, yogurt and bread with a different daily spread. It is a break fast feast.
Everyone that fasted heads to the mosque, leaving me and the children (kids, nursing mothers, sick and elderly aren't required to fast) to do yoga. The family returns and we eat a giant delicious dinner around 10:30. Immediately after which I pass out, half food coma half sleepies.
It's an odd feast-famine cycle that has made me gorge myself both in the morning and at night, both cases followed by sleep. The time in between is filled my very minimal activity. Very odd existence.
Confessional
Last Thursday I found the one Catholic in my village. I now go to his house everyday for lunch, Hallelujah. RamaDONE.
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