Ramadan 2005 ends
Hey,
It’s been awhile since I’ve written. Time is passing so quickly now. I often forget to think about what’s going on back home. That’s not to say I don’t think of my friends and family all the time. It also doesn’t mean I’ve stopped counting the number of months I’ve been here and how many I have left (10 down, 17 to go). It simply means my life feels normal enough and I’m keeping myself occupied. I guess I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I’m here for awhile and so I don’t always wonder what I’m missing at home. My life is here now. For example, when I wake up in the morning, I expect to hear Landuma being spoken outside of my hut, not English. I expect the sound of women pounding rice and prayer calls from the mosque. My dreams are now a strange mix of my life in Africa and people and places from America. I hear Landuma in my dreams and still don’t understand. Being hot and sweating all the time is normal. Hot weather has become mild and really hot is now just hot. I’ve eaten more rice in 10 months than I thought I would ever have eaten in my life. And I like it. If I haven’t had rice today, I haven’t eaten. Or at least it feels that way. I forgot that life still goes on around me. I forgot that back home, school has started again, Charter Day has come and gone and winter is beginning. I forgot that the temperature actually changes in some parts of the world. But it’s OK, ‘cause I’m remembering now.
Right now, I’m sitting under my bed which is now a loft. I had it raised in order to free up a little space in my tiny hut. I also have a new, extremely comfortable chair. The frame was welded together from iron bars by a guy I found in Boké who calls himself MetraSuma (?). I stitched together some empty rice sacks to make the seat and back. You really have to see it and sit in it to know how comfy it is. I’ve already logged many hours in this chair and the rice sacks are starting to form to my body. It’s nice.
Yesterday was a big holiday in Dabiss and all throughout Guinea. It marked the end of the month of Ramadan and this holiday is probably the equivalent of Christmas for us. For those of you not well-acquainted with Islam, Ramadan is the holy month in which God began revealing the Koran to Prophet Muhammad. Muslims commemorate this month with fasting and extra devotional prayers. Now if you didn’t know that, don’t feel bad, the only reason I do is ‘cause someone just lent me The Koran for Dummies (no joke). However, I wouldn’t have needed The Koran for Dummies to know about the fasting because they make it very clear that they are. And they never fail to remind you if you forget. And they also never fail to give you a hard time if you’re not fasting, Muslim or not. However, I fasted about 12 out of the 30 days, so they laid off me most of the time.
Fasting during Ramadan, in Guinea at least, means that from dawn to sunset, you must not eat or drink. This means that each morning, my neighbors all get up before sunrise (4:30 – 5:00 A.M) and have their morning meal. After that, nothing enters the body until sundown. The food part isn’t terrible, it’s the water part that kills you. And most people are still working 5 or 6 hours each day in the field under the hot African sun. Many of them don’t even swallow their saliva. This means lots and lots of spitting. It got repulsive after a while and seemed like too much to me. I never did the spitting thing.
Now bear with me as I write a little about the religious meaning behind all this. I find it interesting and maybe you do, too. If not, feel free to skip. As far as I know, there are two reasons for fasting. One is that fasting makes you more conscious of God. I think the idea is that by depriving the body of food, sex, and water for the sake of God, we become more conscious of God’s presence inside ourselves with each feeling of hunger and thirst. According to the Koran (actually The Koran for Dummies), if we can deprive ourselves of life’s basic necessities for the sake of God, we can surely learn not to indulge in our more destructive behaviors. The other purpose of fasting is that it makes us more thankful toward God. It is also supposed to make apparent the hardship and suffering that others go through every day of the year due to poverty, war, disease, drought, and so on. I find this second reason especially interesting given my context. I don’t think I need to explain how poor Guinea is again. If you were to come here and observe daily life, you might wonder how these people could be thankful for anything considering what they have. You might also wonder how and why they fast for 30 days when finding food is already a huge challenge. It’s pretty amazing. And what’s really amazing to me is how spiritually fulfilled these people are despite living under such primitive and difficult conditions. Seriously, it’s one of the first things I noticed here. Everyone is happy, nice, and generous. They may be materially poor, but they are spiritually rich, or at least it seems that way to me.
Now I’m not a Muslim, but I believe in God and support the idea behind fasting. It’s a good exercise in self control. That’s why I did it. Plus, it is also a great way to build community. Everyone comes together each day to pray and everyone breaks fast together as well. For me, it was nice because I felt a lot of acceptance from everyone for doing some of the fast. For some reason, people thought I wouldn’t be able to do it. I was like, “Hello? You haven’t noticed yet that I just sit in my hut and read all day while everyone else labors in the field? How do you do it?”
OK, time to wrap things up. Everything is going well for me over here. Dabiss is treating me very well. I really do like this place and I’m not finding it terribly hard to do some “Public Health” related work every now and then. People are relatively warm and accepting of my efforts. My health seems to be unnaturally good and I am keeping my fingers crossed. I guess my only complaint would be that ½ of the grass fence enclosing my yard has rotted during the rainy season and fallen apart. I hope that gets fixed soon. It’s made me realize how much I value my privacy. The part that fell was the only barrier between my place and a next door family who spends all day outside of their house, and whose children are still fascinated by the sight of me. Each time I walk out of my back door I hear a chorus of kids shouting my name and soon after, I have several little visitors at my front door. It gets less cute after the millionth time it happens. OK, take care.
Love,
Anders
P.S. According to the Koran (for Dummies of course), during Ramadan, the doors of hellfire close, Satan is chained up and the gates of heaven open side. So you can tell it’s a pretty good month!
It’s been awhile since I’ve written. Time is passing so quickly now. I often forget to think about what’s going on back home. That’s not to say I don’t think of my friends and family all the time. It also doesn’t mean I’ve stopped counting the number of months I’ve been here and how many I have left (10 down, 17 to go). It simply means my life feels normal enough and I’m keeping myself occupied. I guess I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I’m here for awhile and so I don’t always wonder what I’m missing at home. My life is here now. For example, when I wake up in the morning, I expect to hear Landuma being spoken outside of my hut, not English. I expect the sound of women pounding rice and prayer calls from the mosque. My dreams are now a strange mix of my life in Africa and people and places from America. I hear Landuma in my dreams and still don’t understand. Being hot and sweating all the time is normal. Hot weather has become mild and really hot is now just hot. I’ve eaten more rice in 10 months than I thought I would ever have eaten in my life. And I like it. If I haven’t had rice today, I haven’t eaten. Or at least it feels that way. I forgot that life still goes on around me. I forgot that back home, school has started again, Charter Day has come and gone and winter is beginning. I forgot that the temperature actually changes in some parts of the world. But it’s OK, ‘cause I’m remembering now.
Right now, I’m sitting under my bed which is now a loft. I had it raised in order to free up a little space in my tiny hut. I also have a new, extremely comfortable chair. The frame was welded together from iron bars by a guy I found in Boké who calls himself MetraSuma (?). I stitched together some empty rice sacks to make the seat and back. You really have to see it and sit in it to know how comfy it is. I’ve already logged many hours in this chair and the rice sacks are starting to form to my body. It’s nice.
Yesterday was a big holiday in Dabiss and all throughout Guinea. It marked the end of the month of Ramadan and this holiday is probably the equivalent of Christmas for us. For those of you not well-acquainted with Islam, Ramadan is the holy month in which God began revealing the Koran to Prophet Muhammad. Muslims commemorate this month with fasting and extra devotional prayers. Now if you didn’t know that, don’t feel bad, the only reason I do is ‘cause someone just lent me The Koran for Dummies (no joke). However, I wouldn’t have needed The Koran for Dummies to know about the fasting because they make it very clear that they are. And they never fail to remind you if you forget. And they also never fail to give you a hard time if you’re not fasting, Muslim or not. However, I fasted about 12 out of the 30 days, so they laid off me most of the time.
Fasting during Ramadan, in Guinea at least, means that from dawn to sunset, you must not eat or drink. This means that each morning, my neighbors all get up before sunrise (4:30 – 5:00 A.M) and have their morning meal. After that, nothing enters the body until sundown. The food part isn’t terrible, it’s the water part that kills you. And most people are still working 5 or 6 hours each day in the field under the hot African sun. Many of them don’t even swallow their saliva. This means lots and lots of spitting. It got repulsive after a while and seemed like too much to me. I never did the spitting thing.
Now bear with me as I write a little about the religious meaning behind all this. I find it interesting and maybe you do, too. If not, feel free to skip. As far as I know, there are two reasons for fasting. One is that fasting makes you more conscious of God. I think the idea is that by depriving the body of food, sex, and water for the sake of God, we become more conscious of God’s presence inside ourselves with each feeling of hunger and thirst. According to the Koran (actually The Koran for Dummies), if we can deprive ourselves of life’s basic necessities for the sake of God, we can surely learn not to indulge in our more destructive behaviors. The other purpose of fasting is that it makes us more thankful toward God. It is also supposed to make apparent the hardship and suffering that others go through every day of the year due to poverty, war, disease, drought, and so on. I find this second reason especially interesting given my context. I don’t think I need to explain how poor Guinea is again. If you were to come here and observe daily life, you might wonder how these people could be thankful for anything considering what they have. You might also wonder how and why they fast for 30 days when finding food is already a huge challenge. It’s pretty amazing. And what’s really amazing to me is how spiritually fulfilled these people are despite living under such primitive and difficult conditions. Seriously, it’s one of the first things I noticed here. Everyone is happy, nice, and generous. They may be materially poor, but they are spiritually rich, or at least it seems that way to me.
Now I’m not a Muslim, but I believe in God and support the idea behind fasting. It’s a good exercise in self control. That’s why I did it. Plus, it is also a great way to build community. Everyone comes together each day to pray and everyone breaks fast together as well. For me, it was nice because I felt a lot of acceptance from everyone for doing some of the fast. For some reason, people thought I wouldn’t be able to do it. I was like, “Hello? You haven’t noticed yet that I just sit in my hut and read all day while everyone else labors in the field? How do you do it?”
OK, time to wrap things up. Everything is going well for me over here. Dabiss is treating me very well. I really do like this place and I’m not finding it terribly hard to do some “Public Health” related work every now and then. People are relatively warm and accepting of my efforts. My health seems to be unnaturally good and I am keeping my fingers crossed. I guess my only complaint would be that ½ of the grass fence enclosing my yard has rotted during the rainy season and fallen apart. I hope that gets fixed soon. It’s made me realize how much I value my privacy. The part that fell was the only barrier between my place and a next door family who spends all day outside of their house, and whose children are still fascinated by the sight of me. Each time I walk out of my back door I hear a chorus of kids shouting my name and soon after, I have several little visitors at my front door. It gets less cute after the millionth time it happens. OK, take care.
Love,
Anders
P.S. According to the Koran (for Dummies of course), during Ramadan, the doors of hellfire close, Satan is chained up and the gates of heaven open side. So you can tell it’s a pretty good month!
posted by Anders at 8:11 PM
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