Ramadan

Ramadan ends next Tuesday or Wednesday, and I can. not. wait. And I'm not even fasting. Background: Ramadan is the ninth month of the Koranic year, which falls almost exactly in the month of August this year. During Ramadan, Muslims who observe it don't eat or drink between dawn and dusk. You are also supposed to do certain extra prayers, refrain from smoking or other vices, and be generally more spiritual/less worldly. So among other things, there's no live music this month, and the beaches are pretty abandoned.This is my first time in a majority Muslim country (well, technically I've been to Indonesia, but I was only on Bali, and the island is the Hindu exception to the rest of the country.) and spending Ramadan here has been an intense way to be introduced to the religion/culture.

[Sorry, little to illustrate this post, but The Big Picture has some awesome pics from around the world. No Senegal representation though, disappointingly. Also, if you can read French, I thought this was funny : http://www.rue89.com/2010/08/30/au-senegal-les-fraudeurs-du-ramadan-font-semblant-164302]

My boss usually observes Ramadan, even though she isn't Muslim, just because she has spent so long in Senegal and she wants to be in solidarity. My other boss wussed out completely last year and never did it once; this year he did a whole week. And of course my office mate, Senegalese and a rather observant Muslim, would be fasting. So there was some explicit and implicit pressure for me to at least try. I had decided, though, that there wasn't really any reason for me to do it, and it fact the soft pressure of conforming to someone else's religion kind of offended me. And of course, for me, touching my food habits feels like a particularly intimate violation. After a couple days, though, I felt wretched going about my day and feeling(/imagining) everyone's suffering around me, and being jealous in a way that the rest of my office didn't have that guilt. Then I realized what was obvious, that it was fully within in my control to be what I wanted to be (this is true in more cases than I realize generally; I'm making an effort to recognize them more often), and in this case even easier since all I had to do was not do something, right? I decided I'd fast the first day I wasn't planning to exercise. Side effect was that I worked out a lot that week, but by the fourth day of Ramadan I was out of excuses...and totally anxious about it. I interrogated expats (mostly former Peace Corps) who were fasting about strategizing and felt anticipatorily unhappy and deprived.

Finally on Wednesday or Thursday I woke up in the dark and stuffed my face and chugged water before dawn. Okay, before-ish dawn; I kept deciding it wasn't quite light enough to qualify yet, but 6:30 or so felt pretty darn early. I left to work with an oddly light burden; just my purse since I didn't have my habitual snacks and lunch or gym stuff. I resisted the temptation to bring something along in case I wussed out at some point. I also gave myself permission to do basically nothing all day. (Sorry, boss, if you are reading this.)

I meant to live blog fasting, but I was so completely out of it I sat down to write and managed a gibberishy sentence and gave up. That said, almost all of my misery was anxiety and anticipating suffering rather than the actual suffering. I had managed to cram so much into myself in the morning I didn't even get hungry until mid afternoon (I do not think this is how you are supposed to do this, but whatever, I followed the rules.). I did get thirsty almost right away, but again, I think that was mostly just anxiety thirst, and really I wasn't feeling too bad until after work. I had cleverly scheduled a massage ($20/hr for Clementine to come to your house. Not the best massage I've every had, but the best cost:convenience/quality ratio.) which did a good job until seriously about an hour before dusk and breakfast when I went from that stage where you are so hungry you don't feel hungry anymore to so hungry you feel ill. 7:00 to 7:40 was a pretty black time, I'll be honest. And then come break fast time, I felt so ill I could hardly eat.

I'd been thinking I might fast again now that I knew the drill and wasn't freaked out about the unknown of it, but that put an end to that. I was not interested in making myself ill by starvation. It is kind of too bad, though, because taking out the fear factor would make it very doable the next time...except for the radical drop in my work productivity. Don't think MCC would appreciate it if I did 1 week's worth of work in 4 of my 10 weeks here. Ok, that could just be a justification, but I am at peace with having fasted one day. Oddly, the one day fast completely alleviated my sympathetic suffering for other people, probably because whatever you are imagining is going to be worse than the reality, or now I feel like I shared it, even though 1 day out of 30 is entirely negligible. It has proved at least amusing to occasional Senegalese folks I tell that I have fasted. Either way, sorry Pape, but I am drinking water while I work even if you aren't and I am trying not to crunch audibly, but I am not going to leave the building to do it.

Sunset = break fast time. Do not try to get a cab at this hour.

A few more thoughts on Ramadan:
It makes you realize how basic to human interaction eating and drinking is. It has really chilled the tone in the office now that we aren't sharing coffee, cookie, or candied peanut breaks. Lunch is a furtive rather than a social activity. Meetings aren't softened by pastries or tea. Differences between the expats (and the Catholic minority, too) and Muslim Senegalese are drawn out. And of course people are fatigued and more somber than usual. It is inspiring in a way of course; the dedication everyone demonstrates each day is really remarkable. And since the contrast is so marked, I'm just going to go ahead and say it: Lent and Passover are for pussies. Quit yer whining.