So I'm fasting today. Ramadan started a little over a week ago, which means that mostly everyone in Senegal is fasting, because mostly everyone (95%) is Muslim. Ramadan has made my first weeks in Senegal a little...difficult. Things close early, restaurants don't serve a lot of food, night clubs aren't popular, and your family forces you to eat two dinners. Well, a break fast and a dinner. But since I'm not fasting (well, until today that is), it felt like two dinners. So I started to wonder if it would be easier, perhaps, to go along with the rest of the country and not eat during the day- it certainly would make it easier to eat two meals in the evening. So last night when my brother Papis asked, and when are you going to start fasting? (I had mentioned the first evening that I might try) I replied, well if you can get me up at 5 AM, sure. Why not?
The thing is, I imagined that our pre-fast meal would be like our evening meals. Enough food that I wouldn't want to eat again for hours. But when I sat down this morning, there was before me some baguette, butter and powdered milk AKA the standard fare during Ramadan. But usually there are other things, like sausage, or eggs. Nope. And on top of that, I had to eat it in about 5 min because my sister woke me up late. So I had my buttered baguette in one hand, my hot milk with 3 sugar cubes in the other and one eye on the clock as I preceeded to eat and drink as fast as humanily possible, knowing that this would be the last food I would eat until around 7PM. And right at 6:50, Oumi told me to set down my cup and swallow the last of my baguette.
And that was the last time I ate today.
Now, I normally don't get breakfast at the house. Everyone usually gets up at 6 or whatever and then goes back to sleep until around 10 and I leave at 8. On occasion I've been able to rough it out until lunch but usually at that point I start fading out and get snappy. I am far beyond that point now. The hunger feels like a big emptiness in my stomache, a bite that itches but i just have to ignore for a few more hours (only 5 now!).
I'll eat my entire portion tonight, even if we have cëebujen for dinner.
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5 comments:
I'm getting hungry just reading about your brave attempt to fast today. So what is ceebujen? I wonder if you ever adjust (over the 40 days) to that hunger and emptiness? Personally, I really can't stand fasting; more power to you toast.
Hey Zozo! The picture at the top of your blog is beautiful, is it Dakar? I hope you survived fasting, are you planning to do that for the rest of ramadan?! love you lots, Cady
Not big on fish, (as you know) but this ceebujen sounds good, especially with some hot peppers and the xooñ scraped from the bottom of the pan; but I'm just not
into the macaat.
But I do like the song, even if they can't be seen drinking cappuccino in Italian restaurants with Oriental women.
Now try getting that song out of
your head!
did dad really say oriental women. oh my. anyways yeah i know how it feels to fast for that long. for tisch ba-av i fasted from 7 pm to 9 pm the next day. it was quite the fast.
at some point you just don't get hungry anymorer
baby I love you. I hope fasting is going okay for you. We gotta skype soon, I wanna hear your voice.
Love always,
Tiger
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