It’s a real bonding experience, lots of camaraderie, because everyone commiserates over how hungry they are! They take long naps together, and sit together lethargically in the last few hours before it’s time to eat.
I tried to join in on the bonding, but I only lasted one day. Pretty pathetic showing. I wanted to go longer, but I had a busy week- Ramadan isn’t really conducive to getting a lot done. It’s a lot more bearable if you’re sedentary. Muslims keep going to work as usual though. Muslims in village had to keep working in the fields! The most hardcore Muslims try not to even swallow their own spit. I went to a workshop on Beekeeping held by another PCV and all the women in the group were passing around a communal spitting bag, spitting all during the indoor meeting.
People say your body adjusts to it after the first week or so, but it’s still not easy. A lot of people were chewing on pieces of wood to get through the day. (I assumed, then, that I could chew gum but apparently not because you’d still be imbibing sugar) Everyone begins to look a little thinner mid-month. Not everyone has to fast. Little kids don’t, and older kids do but are allowed to skip a lot of days. You can skip days if you’re sick. Pregnant women are allowed to skip, but often don’t because when you skip days you have to make them up later after Ramadan is over, and they prefer to fast at the same time everyone else is fasting. When women have their menstrual cycles, they do not fast, because it is considered unclean.
Even though I didn’t earn it, my neighbors still let me share their special foods with them each night. They break fast with bouillie, a broth made from boiled milk, rice, peanut butter, flour, sugar, and tamarind or lemon juice. Delicious, and I was given my own big steaming cup each night. They eat it with beignets, or other light snacks-juice or koki (white bean mush fried in palm oil). During Ramadan, you can’t find any street food during the day, but around 5:00pm right before breaking fast, there’s rows of women selling every variety of fried carbs- rice beignets, millet beignets, flour beignets fried flat or round, fried potatoes, etc. About two hours after their bouille and beignets, they have a real meal. So it’s a celebration each night, and people spend extra money to buy delicacies they wouldn’t usually buy.
At the end of the month, there’s a whole week of partying. People really go all out. Fathers buy the entire family new clothes, and send gifts to extended relatives. Men shower gifts on the women they are courting. Women in my neighborhood had different outfits for each day, new jewelry, new shoes, and new bags. Everyone dresses up and then spends the week visiting family and friends. On the first morning, everyone gathered in the town square to pray in unison. Then the visiting began. It reminded me of Halloween in the US. In the morning, hordes of kids go door to door for candy, money, popcorn, and fried dough. Mostly fried dough. The women of each family prepare tubs of these fried gateaux to give out to visitors. Then in the afternoon big groups of adults go around too. I went around and was given an identical bowl of fried dough balls at each house I went to! At one I was sitting in the middle of about 25 men from the neighborhood; they sprayed themselves with perfume offered by the host and then prayed as group before moving on to the next house. I visited a friend in village and the roads were full of merrymakers- people stacked 5 to a moto, honking and talking excitedly. The whole week had a fun, festive atmosphere- the Muslim equivalent of Christmas! My camera malfunctioned, so not many pictures...but there's another fete coming up in a month or two, Fete de Mouton, so I'll make up for it...
preparing peanuts to grind into peanut butter to make bouillie for the month
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