Ramadan Karim

On Wednesday, it seems, Ramadan will begin. We never really know until the very last minute, since it's not exactly up to us, it's up to the Moon.

I've never been in Palestine during Ramadan before, but I've had the pleasure of spending two Ramadans in Egypt. One of them was in Cairo, and Cairo is amazing in Ramadan. Amazing.

The days leading up to the first day of fasting are filled with preparations, cooking, stockpiling and the air is virtually vibrating with excitement and well wishing.

"Ramadan karim!"

"Allahu akram."

Literally: Ramadan is generous, but God is more generous.

Then Ramadan begins. The first day is difficult, they say. Exhausting without water, cigarettes or food. Long. But then it gets easier to fast because you get used to it. From where I'm standing, however, it doesn't seem to get that much easier at all. In fact, as the days creep by at a snail's pace, they just seem to get longer and hotter and people seem to get worse headaches and less patience by the hour. They talk less. Carry out their duties, but do little more than that.

In the afternoon, right before the prayer, you can hear a pin drop on the sidewalk in the middle of Cairo, if you had one to drop. Not a soul is out. And for Cairo, a city of something like 20 or 25 million souls, that is truly a strange thing.

So what's so amazing about this, you might ask yourself.

It's not the days, and it's not the breakfast (literally breaking the fast) at sundown with all its abundance.

And even though they are quite amazing in themselves, it's not even the nights that truly make Cairo amazing in Ramadan. It's true, every street is lit by multicolored lightbulbs strung up between buildings and trees, winking at people dressed up to go out to the Ramadan tents set up all over the city to smoke shisha and eat and talk. And as much as I do love the foul vendors that set up special Ramadan booths all over Cairo to provide its citizens with piping hot fava beans at night to keep them longer during the next day, it's not really that either.

It's what happens in the poor quarters. People who have been more blessed in this life line up table after table after table in long rows on the streets in the less affluent areas and invite anybody who needs a helping hand to sit down and partake of a good square meal that leave little more to ask.

I think it's this that Ramadan is all about. Reaching out to your neighbors who might be lacking what you have an abundance of, and share with them your abundance.

But, without wanting to offend anybody, I sort of don't really get the whole fasting part. I know it's supposed to remind you of what it's like for people who don't have access to all the food and water they need or want, but surely we don't need to deprive ourselves of food and water to understand that they need our help? And, honestly, there are people who need a helping hand during other months than Ramadan as well.

Which reminds me of Christmas. Somewhere along the line, the birth of Jesus was also made to remind us of the importance of being together and helping those in need. And just like some Christians (if not most that I know of, including myself who still celebrate Christmas without being an actual Christian) sort of forget about that--and about Jesus, for that matter--in the middle of all the Christmas gift buying, gingerbread baking and food preparations, I daresay some Muslims also focus on the symbolism around Ramadan and forget about the essence: they fast diligently, but then the indulge in an excess of food at night... which, I believe, is not really the best way of reminding yourself of what it's like not to have food on your table at all, day or night.

So. My point? Don't fast during Ramadan or indulge in an excess of food at night; don't buy lots of Christmas gifts and overeat Christmas food?

No, not at all.

Be nice and share all year around?

Yeah, maybe.

Either way, I'm looking forward to seeing what Ramadan is like here in Ramallah. I think very different from Cairo. Most people I have talked to don't exactly plan on fasting at all, except maybe the first day. No one in our office will observe Ramadan, which will make life much easier for me. Because even though I understand that it is actually illegal to eat or drink on the street during the fasting hours here, nobody will know what happens behind our office door.

Meat Trauma

I was hungry a second ago, but now I can't eat.

Struggling to keep inner calm.

It's like this: I grew up with a mom who refused to eat another bite of meat at the age of 11 and a dad who gave up meat after he started seeing my mom. My childhood was tofu, soya burgers, beans, and sometimes vegetarian hot dogs on special occasions.

I never even smelled meat cooking until I started school. No wait, sometimes they would cook meat at my kindergarten and one time one of the ladies had forgotten to make a vegetarian meal for me, and she suggested that I pick out the meat parts from the soup she had cooked for the other kids.

I looked at her as if she were from outer space.

Then I think she got the message and she made me some kind of instant pudding or other which I ate instead.

My point is that I've never eaten meat in my entire life, I've never wanted to eat meat in my entire life, I've never touched meat unless I was wearing plastic gloves (once when I worked in a restaurant: I almost threw up all over it, then they put me on chopping vegetables instead), and I always look away when I see meat at the market or in grocery stores. I walk out of the room when meat is cooking, damn it. I can't even smell it.

So you can imagine what it was like for me when I just went out into the kitchen two minutes ago, at my boyfriend's parents' house (who eat meat on a daily basis), feeling a little bit hungry, opened the fridge and took out the little plastic container in which I put the sun dried tomato pesto I made last night and I see something red dripping from under it.

Not fully realizing it at first, I went: Oh, the container is leaking and the olive oil is colored red from the tomatoes. 

Then: But it wasn't leaking at lunch when I took it out, and nobody else has touched it.

Then, holding the container in my hand, seeing that the red whatever-it-was had dripped on my foot, turning my eyes back to the shelf in the fridge, noticing a blue plastic bag, remembering that Tarek's dad bought meat in a blue plastic bag today on the way home: No, it is NOT!

It hit me like a punch in the stomach. It was meat juice. Like diluted blood. Dripping on my foot.

I called for help. Meaning: I asked Tarek's parents to clean it up, because I could certainly not, and I desperately needed to run to the bathroom to wash my feet with soap.

I also changed my pants in case a tiny drop had landed somewhere I couldn't see.

Then I went back outside and cleaned my sun dried tomato pesto container. First with a paper towel that sucked up the juice and turned light red as if it was blood.

Which it was.

And then I cleaned it with soap and water. And fully aware of the fact that there is no way the meat juice that was leaking from the blue bag had actually entered into my pesto, I still put it back in the fridge (on another shelf, mind you). Completely unable to eat. Especially something dark red.

I need to convince my boyfriend of the benefits of veganism.

The Beach

I didn't tell you that we went to the beach the other day, did I?

If not: we went to the beach the other day.

It was a sunny, windy day and the gemstone-green Mediterranean thrusted its waters onto the seashore, wave after wave.

We spent hours in the warm water, tumbling around in the waves, (sort of) body surfing... (that is to say, Tarek tried to teach me. I might have gotten it right once or twice, but mostly I was just caught in the middle of enormously huge waves, sucked under the water, spun around a few times; I scrubbed against the sandy bottom, and then popped up again, gasping for air with eyes burning from the salty water)...

...like I said, sort of body surfing... for hours and hours, not really minding the scorching sun and definitely ignoring the beach guards shouting at us in Hebrew through their loudspeakers. Supposedly something in the line of: you are not allowed to swim outside the designated swimming area!

But we didn't understand.

Once, we got out of the water as a nice gesture, but everybody else was still swimming so we jumped right back in, immediately swallowed by the waves again.

Tarek Swallowed by a Wave

Me Swallowed by Another Wave

Imagine if we were allowed to go there without permits, checkpoints and all that crap. Then we could take the car tomorrow morning and be there within an hour. And get all sunburned, sandy, sweaty and salty again. But Tarek doesn't have a permit to go to Israel now. So we'll have to make do with the hotel swimming pools here.

Yay (kind of unenthusiastic... although it's certainly better than nothing).