Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Ramadan

This August we participated in our first Ramadan.  We’re not Muslim so we fully expected to be irritated by everything that is Ramadan; that also sounds bad.  I say that because older volunteers have told us how during Ramadan everyone is angry, nobody sells anything, and you get asked about fasting every 5 minutes.  Our Ramadan experience only lasted about 7 days in village because we went on holiday, but that week was really not terrible.  It was actually a neat experience.  The whole village is doing the same thing together: fasting, working, praying.  The 9 o’clock prayer is the big prayer time and the whole village gets dressed up and attends.  It’s nice actually to see the village going through a hard time together, but knowing that it will end soon with Koriteh, a big feast.  And breaking the fast at night was great! They eat real good when the sun goes down – chicken, pasta, bread, tea!  We were pretty happy with the food situation during Ramadan.  Solo told us that people spend a lot more money on food during Ramadan because you’re supposed to eat well at night.   In the city area you will see people outside bakeries all day long waiting to buy discounted bread to break the fast.

Our family ‘breaking fast’

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