5 Ramadan Myths Busted

Based on my brief Ramadan experience

Obligatory waiting in traffic amjad selfie

I wanted to write at least one more post about what my life has been like since Ramadan started because I thought it’d make for an interesting post. Ramadan is a holy month in Islam where people fast during the day time for 30 days. Fasting is from sunrise to sunset; no food or drink, not even water. This year’s started off with some major confusion surrounding when it actually started. You see the Islamic calendar relates with the moon’s cycle. So for weeks I’ve been asking when Ramadan started and gotten different answers. I must have received no less than 5 contradicting messages from people the Saturday before it started. “Google says..” quoted one non-Muslim friend. Well Google was wrong.

Let’s look at some other Ramadan in Sudan myths and misconceptions. And by myths I mainly mean the wrong assumptions I made about Ramadan before I knew better.

Everyone is fasting. WRONG For starters children and elderly don’t fast. Some families have kids “practice” a day or two as they get older. If you are traveling or sick you also don’t have to fast. (Shouldn’t this have ended the World Cup Muslim players fasting controversy?)  When girls are on their periods they don’t fast. Although they have to “make-up” days throughout the year before the next Ramadan (same for those who skipped due to traveling). In the end, fasting or not fasting is a personal decision.

Everything shuts down during Ramadan. WRONG I think I got this idea from the fact that on Fridays everything closes for people to go Mosque. I told some friends that I was planning on doing a big shopping trip before Ramadan started to hoard food. They looked at me and started laughing and then told me stores would still be open. While some stuff is closed, a lot more is open than I thought would be. Groceries and little shops all stay open. Schools running classes (like mine) stay open. We were really surprised to still have good attendance this past week. Restaurants open at night. The buses still run. Life continues as normal. If you have a job you still have to go to work.

The hardest part about fasting is not being able to drink water. WRONG Well, maybe for some it is the hardest part, but a general survey of complaints has yielded many more about smokers being antsy wanting a cigarette or coffee-drinkers with headaches from being unable to get their caffeine-fix.

People lose a lot of weight during Ramadan. WRONG Well again, I don’t have scientific evidence on this but I recently saw this article. Overeating is apparently a big problem. Some people try to take 4 meals in the span from 7:30pm-4am. I can’t imagine working out or running in Sudan when I could drink water (although there are gyms and clubs which residents frequent) but its safe to say during Ramadan the physical activity is even more limited.

It’s going to be really challenging to feed myself during Ramadan. WRONG Since Ramadan has started I think it’s actually the best I’ve eaten in the last 4 months. Since our usual cafeteria and fast food lunch places aren’t open and due to general interest, I’ve really taken up cooking a lot more meals. And no I don’t mean Ramen noodles. I’ve made some great lentil and chickpea soups and salads and then used the leftovers to make my own falafel (sans food processor BTW). I literally whipped up dinner for my entire household two nights last week. WHO AM I? The second part of eating awesome during Ramadan has been the amazing Iftar dinner’s I’ve been invited to. Iftar is the meal around 7:30 here that breaks the fast. There are some special foods eaten for Ramadan and the meal is always taken on mats on the floor. Dates and ful ( slow cooked fava beans) are a must.  I think the most important ingredient in an Iftar “breakfast” is the whole family or community coming together. Many families eat outside in the streets. The purpose of this is so if any traveler is passing during the time fast breaks they can be invited to join.

Outside our window at  4pm vs at 7:30pm. You can see the tea ladies' chairs stacked in the parking lot during the day. They set up right before fast breaks. You can see in the second picture the groups of men eating on mats on the side of the street. Some days we can see as many as five different groups just from our back window.

Above and below are examples of Iftar meals. They both include some Sudanese signature items like dates and ful. Above also includes moola and garassa which I've discussed previously, salad, and powder sugar covered zalabiya for dessert. Below in addition to ful and dates shows some yogurt dip, temiyah, salad, rice, and french fries.

After dinner we got to play with a puppy, so clearly that was the highlight of the evening.