“Kong, Kong, Tiguida, Tiguida, I be kunnina wa?”
It is 4am, it
is the middle of Ramadan and it is time for breakfast. Every day this month I
have been waking up at 4am with my family to celebrate Ramadan and fast with
them. Each morning I eat porridge, return to sleep, and will not eat or drink
until sundown and we break the fast. Although some days I sneak a little water,
I have kept true to my word and have fasted food with my family except when I
am traveling around the country to different villages or I am at the regional house
which is considered “little America”. Do I enjoy it? No. Am I learning a lot? Absolutely.
Ramadan
is the Islamic holy month of fasting in which Muslims may not eat or drink
during daylight hours. It is celebrated because it is said that this is the
month in which the prophet Mohammed received the first ideas to create the
Quran. The Quran is like the Bible for Muslims. Ramadan begins with the
sighting of the new moon and continues until the end of the moon cycle. All day
Muslims abstain from water and food until the end of the day when a break fast
occurs. Around 7:30PM cold water and bread is shared, we all go to the Mosque
to pray, and we come back and feast on dinner. A full month of reflection,
fasting, and being with each other.
Although
you may be thinking, WHY ON EARTH would a non-Muslim participate in this... I
honestly just wanted to see if I could do it. Every day is a constant struggle
of wanting to sneak to my room and eat a little snack or not participate in the
prayer at night, however I have been able to push myself mentally and believe
it or not, spiritually, and do this with my host family. They pray 5 times a
day and are truly fasting, how could I NOT give it a try? However, we are only
half way through.
Each
village has their own way of celebrating Ramadan and their own traditions. My
town is especially interesting. After 15 days of fasting, we just celebrated a
day like the American holiday of Halloween. The kids of Botou covered
themselves in wood ash, made silly hats, collected sticks, and carried around
buckets to collect food from their neighbors. Although it wasn’t candy, I participated
in the event and walked around with my 2 host sisters. To get food from
neighbors you had to perform a song or do a little dance to then be rewarded
with either, corn, peanuts, cowpeas, sorghum, or even money. My bucket was full
at the end of the night and I have never had so many adults laugh in my village
at the same time when I was dancing around singing, “ A salaam wali wali, A
wali saalam!”
As it
is getting closer to June 25th (14 more days!), we are going to
start preparing for the end of Ramadan with the holiday called Korite. It will
be the end of Ramadan and it is celebrated by slaughtering a goat and feasting
on it until it is completely gone, usually takes about 3 days. The town dresses
up and we feast (my kind of holiday!).
So far,
I haven’t passed out, died, or anything that my host family thought was going
to happen. I get called a “janbar” on the regular which literally translates to
warrior. Can I put that on a resume or nah?
I look forward to the remaining days of fasting and centralizing
myself everyday with reflection with my family.
No comments:
Post a Comment