Ramadan Chapter 2

I just finished my fourth day of fasting and am now sitting contentedly full, a huge bottle of water next to me and quite proud of myself for sticking to this. As I feared, the no water part of the day is the hardest, as I am used to constantly having a bottle at my side like a security blanket; even if I don't want to drink, I know I can and that is somehow satisfying.

The first two days were difficult, in that I was thirsty and kind of in a daze, making my studies even more difficult. I'm now in the Intermediate level course and it focuses on longer texts, which I have to read aloud. The more I speak, the more difficult it is to talk without water, reminding me of how thirsty I am. I did just find out today though, that I am allowed to rinse my mouth with water, or brush my teeth during the day, as long as I don't swallow any water. Just being able to swish some water around in my mouth was actually really helpful and made reading in class easier. I've been able to concentrate a little better over these past two days as well and think my body is adjusting. However, today was the first day that I've actually been really hungry.

I've been waking up around 3:30 - 3:45 in the morning to eat something and to drink as much as possible, to keep me going throughout the day and without doing that, I don't know how I'd make it. However, I have until the first prayer of the day to eat whatever I want. So, I've become attached to a website with the prayer times listed on it to have a general sense of when the call to prayer will happen. Since the prayer times are based on the movement of the sun, they are not exact, but are probably accurate to with in a couple of minutes. I've included a chart with the prayer schedule for Rabat at the bottom of this post, if you want to see what it looks like.

The first prayer of the day is called Fajr occurs at dawn, as the first light of the sun is seen. It occurs between 4:30am and 5:00am in the month of September this year and so up until the time I hear the call to prayer, I can eat and drink normally. Since I have become so accustomed to hearing the calls to prayer, I sleep through them and have had to set my alarm to wake up in time to eat something before I begin fasting for the day.

From the time of the Fajr prayer call until the 4th prayer of the day (called Maghrib), I cannot eat or drink anything. This prayer occurs right when the sun is on the horizon (dusk) and falls between 7:00pm and 6:15pm through September, getting earlier each day by a few minutes. On the one hand, I'm happy about that, as I can drink a few minutes sooner each day! However, this means that days are getting shorter and winter is approaching, my time here is getting shorter and I'm reminded of how much I still want to accomplish before I return to the states.

I have been looking forward to the Maghrib azan (call to prayer), because that means I can finally eat and drink! The meal in the evening is called "iftar" and means literally, "breaking the fast". My ate my first iftar meal with my host family and Joe and Monica, my next door neighbors who also go to my school. They're a married couple from Australia and Muslim also. My host family put on quite a spread (as is usual when they have company...in this case the company was Joe and Monica. I'm no longer considered company!). We ate traditional Moroccan soup called harirra, dates, dried figs, mellawi (unleavened, fried bread, not unlike Indian naan), schbakia (Moroccan cookies usually for Ramadan) and of course, tea. After eating, all the Muslims went to pray the Maghrib prayer (i.e., not me), then returned to eat more before the last prayer of the day. Supposedly they are two separate meals, but it was like one big, never-ending meal in my opinion. My host sister/mother, Fatiha brought out meat and rice, homemade bread and a fruit and vegetable salad. I wasn't expecting all of this food and was sooo full by the time we left, I could not imagine eating again. Perhaps this is why I was not hungry the next day!

I've had the other three IFtaar dinners, all at my school. They're pretty much the same, consisting of soup, fried breads (one stuffed with ground beef and spices, one stuffed with vegetables, one plain), and a pancake-like substance, very similar to Ethiopian injeera which is eaten with a mixture of honey and butter spooned over it. Also, there are the requisite figs and cookies and I'm actually getting tired of sweets ... and bread now that I think of it. I can't remember the last real vegetable I've seen and every IFtaar seems like a contest to see how much fat you can stuff into your body. This might be cool for a night or two, but I don't think I can take this for the entire month! I wish now I had done a before and after weigh-in. Oh well. We'll see how it goes. Wish me luck!

Here's a link to a prayer schedule for Rabat, Morocco: