The Holy Month of Ramadan

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Every day I live is nothing short of an adventure. Living in a foreign country only makes that more true. The thing I always love most about traveling is the opportunity to experience an entirely different culture from my own and to integrate into a community means the chance to also experience their religion, family values, and holidays.

For those of you that don’t know, we are currently about a week and a half into the holiest month of the Islamic calendar: Ramadan. One of the five pillars of the Islamic faith requires believers to observe the holy month of Ramadan by fasting from sun-up to sun-down, as well as abstaining from other activities during those hours. So what does all of that jargon mean in basic terms? Essentially for Ramadan, you may not eat or drink anything (yes, that includes water) from sun-up to sun-down. The only exceptions to this are if you are sick, menstruating, pregnant, or pre-pubescent. You also may not smoke, or engage in sexual intercourse, and many devout believers often try to read the whole Koran over the course of the month of Ramadan.

Because the Islamic calendar does not coincide with the Gregorian calendar, but instead is based on the moon’s cycle, Ramadan moves forward about 10 days each year. This year it started on July 10^th, and will continue until August 9^th. As you can imagine, it makes it more difficult to fast during the summer months, when it is 16 hours between sun-up and sun-down, and, in my site at least, it is hovering around 110 degrees outside. And yet, people still do it. Every year.

The flag of Morocco

Morocco is a country made up of a 97% Islamic population, meaning the entire country is fasting through Ramadan, which also makes the experience much more different than it would be in the United States. The country is set up for Ramadan, and everything changes for it. Business hours change, café’s close, grocery stores run out of perishable food because everyone is only cooking traditional foods (no Cornflakes for breaking fast…), and people essentially go nocturnal. If you go outside in the morning you will find people doing their normal shopping and errands, although by midday when the heat is at its worst, my city looks like a ghost town, complete with small dust tornado’s running down the middle of the street. However, starting around an hour or two after the Maghrib call to prayer goes off in the evening, indicating that you can break fast, the world comes alive. Children are outside playing soccer until 2:30 in the morning, restaurants open up, and I suddenly remember there is supposed to be 80,000 people in my town.

A traditional meal to break fast with.

I found myself facing a dilemma though as Ramadan approached. Many Volunteers fast each year for Ramadan as part of gaining another cultural experience during their time here. Many Volunteers do not fast. I went back and forth quite a bit on whether I was going to fast or not. When Ramadan started, I was out on the coast in a city called El Jadida working at a summer camp with 14 other Peace Corps Volunteers, about half of which were planning on fasting. Last year, all three of my site-mates fasted for the entire month, so I felt as if I was being pressured in some degree into fasting because my community was expecting me to. However, I also felt as if I was trivializing a very holy time for the Islamic faith by fasting. I am not Muslim, and I would not be fasting for any religious reason, but rather just for the experience of saying that I had experienced Ramadan fully (as fully as a non-Muslim can). I think fasting just to fast is making a mockery of the religion and the true reasons that millions of Muslim’s are fasting around the world.

When it all came down to it, however, here is what made me decide to at least try fasting. I was talking to some other Volunteers about my inner struggle with the ethics behind if I should fast or not, and all of these Volunteers were older and had experienced it in previous years. Their explanation for why they chose to fast, and continue fasting, last year, was because they found that if nothing else, this was a huge holiday to bring families together. It is illegal in Morocco to be caught breaking fast in public (aka, eating in public when its daytime), punishable by fines and months in jail. Because Islam is the national religion of Morocco, I think it often seems that it is a more devout country than it is. Granted, I think it is a very devout country. However, I think many people tend to follow along with it more because it’s all happening around them, than by their own doing. If it wasn’t for the fact that it’s illegal, I’m sure there would be a not insignificant number who do not follow Ramadan fully. And this made me think of Christmas.

Take a guess of which of us 3 isn't fasting.

I am not Christian. In fact, I am not a fan of any organized religion really. I think they are taken out of context too easily, and exploited for personal use often. I have my beliefs and am a spiritual person in and of myself, but do not feel a need to define my beliefs in the context of a religion. However, I still celebrate Christmas every year. Partly because I was raised in America, and, like it or not, it’s become a part of American culture. Partly because I was raised Christian in various degrees. But mostly, because I really like Christmas. To me Christmas is more about bringing a family together and showing the people that matter the most to you how much you care about them. And, in Morocco, I think this is Ramadan to some degree.

So this made me decide to fast, if only for a little bit. I knew that I was going on vacation two weeks into Ramadan, and obviously wasn’t going to fast while I’m in Gibraltar and Spain (I mean… really?). But I figured trying it until then would be worth it. It would give me the experience to really know what Ramadan felt like, as well as truly being able to tell the people in my community that I was fasting, and diving fully into their culture. The first day is the worst, but after that, it really isn't difficult. Not eating becomes a non-issue, while you really just focus on the fact that you’re thirsty. I went without water while I was still in El Jadida, but as soon as I was back in site I started drinking water again (its 110 degrees with next to zero humidity, I need water). But ultimately, I was blown away by the experience. The first night sitting in the dining hall with 60 campers, most of who were fasting, and all of the camp staff and volunteers, waiting for the call to prayer to go off in order to devour the glass of orange juice in front of me, with the overall sense of being part of something bigger than me, you just can’t get better than that.

And, for the record, food tastes better when you've waited 16 hours for it.