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.

The Social Scene in Khartoum: Concerts, Culture, and Dancing

Upon coming to Sudan I was warned that it doesn’t exactly have a vibrant social scene, in the traditional Western sense. I was told of course there arn’t movie theaters*, concerts are limited, and there isn’t exactly night life. My social life in Sudan has proved much of this to be quite contrary. I’ve frequented concerts, parties, and stayed out very late on Nile Street. This can’t be attributed to getting on the inside of the Khartoum expat social scene either, as Rachel and I have happily found ourselves slightly outside that circle. Rather the past couple weeks I’ve had my fair share of exposure to Sudanese culture and entertainment through several festivals. There have been really great events.

First Sudan Film Factory partnered with a number institutions including the Goethe Institute (German cultural institute) and hosted Sudan’s First Independent Film Festival. How great is this? I was lucky enough to get my name on the list for the opening night. On opening night there was a screening of “Faisal Goes West” a short film about a family who emigrated from Sudan to Texas. You can watch the trailer here because I’m about it SPOILER ALERT in my experience and review of it. I loved that the film maker chose to tell this story framing it around the struggle of immigrants and not making it about refugees. There is even a line “Darfur. Yeah we aren’t from there.” It was also super interesting to watch the film as an American in an audience full of Sudanese. In many ways America is still “a big dream” for many Sudanese who I’ve talked with. Rachel and I estimated about 3 out of every 10 Sudanese friends or colleagues have told us they applied for the lottery. The movie does have its cringe-worthy moment where Faisal runs into some guys that jump him. Obviously I don’t want my Sudanese friends to think that if they come to American they are going to be attacked or robbed and that we have become an intolerant society of outsiders in America so yeah my initial reaction was a sarcastic “oh great”. Upon reflection though I think the scene, clearly the climax of the film, speaks symbolically about the difference between perception and reality of the typical immigrant’s journey. Anyway it’s a great film you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll wonder if there really are still chicken farms in Texas.

          After the movie there was a great performance by Dina Al Wadi a French-Egyptian Singer who wore a hot pink mumu type dress. She even sang some Sudanese songs of which the crowd loved and sang along with. I think she was the most talented singer I’ve seen perform in Sudan.

          Anyway I went to an additional screening of another film though the festival screened maybe up to a dozen and generally think the film festival was a success so that’s really great. Additionally there was a Sudanese Cultural Festival hosted by the Sudanese National Museum and co-sponsored by the British Council. During this festival I attended two concerts. One showcased a local Reggae band and the following night a British Dub-Reggae Band (cause apparently that’s a thing now) performed.  I think I’ve mentioned before that many Sudanese love reggae music. At one point one of the nights hosts made the claim that reggae music started in East Africa…a claim which definitely raised an eyebrow or two. The concerts ended at 11 due to a noise curfew or something. While generally I don’t want to put down these types of events I was scratching my head a bit at the fact that a British band was headlining the final night of a “Sudanese” cultural festival. To the organizers’ credit for a few songs some local artists joined the band on stage.

It could have been an off-hand remark but my friend Mohammed turned to me during Dina al-Wahi’s performance and said that because there was such an international crowd she should sing some American music. I get the impression that Sudanese culture isn’t perceived as “special” or “good enough” and was reminded of this again with the British band incident.

     

          As far as entertainment between festival based events (and there seems to be a festival of some sort every month) there are several restaurants that have live-singers on Thursday nights. One of which is a popular Souq Al-Arabi restaurant called Papa Costas. All I can say is I’m still recovering from my experience dancing and listening to the band play everything from “Hotel California” to popularized Arabic music to a Tom Jones inspired take on “Yesterday” and I don’t think any amount of words could fully describe my night there, but it was definitely fun and unexpected.

Finally not to leave out one of the more glamorous nights out I most recently attended a very lovely party at the German residence located at a Nile front property.

*The newly opened Afra Mall has a theater showing Egyptian movies