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Published: December 4th 2005
The Grandma
Here's the Grandma grinding up peanuts to eat, because she doesn't have any teeth.I’m really luck to have spent Ramadan in an Islamic country. For those of you who don’t know, Ramadan is a holy month during which Muslims don’t eat, drink, have sex, or smoke during daytime. Fasting is supposed to redirect the heart away from daily matters and to bring the heart closer to God. Children, the sick, the elderly, and pregnant women don’t fast. Women don’t fast during their periods but have to make up that week before or after the official month of Ramadan.
Everyone wakes up before sunrise to eat. Some families just have bread and fruit, while some eat a full meal. Then no one eats or drinks again until sundown. I should add that this year, Ramadan fell during October, the hottest month of the year.
I did not fast, a decision for which I was endlessly admonished by my host family and even strangers. They told me I ought to participate in all aspects of Senegalese culture, including Ramadan. With a theatrical hand to my forehead, I repeatedly told people that I was already weak in the heat. Then I would make a show of slumping with fatigue and tell them I would faint
if I didn’t eat or drink all day. Usually they laughed and left me alone.
Since they couldn’t eat all day, everyone was really anxious to get home by sunset for a big dinner. The traffic patterns totally changed for the month of Ramadan. Roads would get really busy when it was almost time for sundown, and drivers were particularly aggressive. Then, by the time the sun actually disappeared, the roads were clear.
One not particularly pleasant part of the month is the end of day crankiness. Nearing sundown, everyone around me seemed a lot less friendly than normal. People were really pushy to get on overcrowded
car rapides; shopkeepers were less patient with my limited language skills; taxi drivers were less flexible in rates. Also, most of the stores and offices closed early throughout the month.
Everyone celebrates at the end of the month. The holiday is called Korite in Senegal but has different names in other countries. The date of the celebration has to do with the appearance of the moon. This year there was a controversy over the date of Korite, so some brotherhoods celebrated it on Thursday and some on Friday.
For
The dinner bowl
For traditional Senegalese meals, everyone sits around the bowl and eats from the pie-shaped portion in front of them. Most younger people use spoons, but people our parent's generation use their hands. kids, Korite is a little like Halloween. They get dressed up in their best clothes and go around to all the houses in the neighborhood asking for money. Adults also dress up in their best clothes, new if they can afford them. (Joy and I happened to be in the market the day before the holiday, and it was insanely crowded.) Everyone goes around visiting people and asking forgiveness for any offenses they may have committed against that person.
We went with our host parents to the town where they were born, Mbour, about 4 hours away. We stayed with Papa’s sister and a bunch of random family members. The holiday was pretty uneventful. Lauren and I got dressed up in semi-Senegalese outfits, ate dinner, and then sat around with the family. At one point we ventured over to Papa’s mother’s house a few blocks away. We sat around for a while there, and then we walked back to the aunt’s house. The highlight was getting to play with baby Saly all weekend.
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Carrie
non-member comment
My friend I'm sitting with and I decided that that holiday would never fly in America. Can you imagine people like fasting all day? And the restaurants not being open until sundown and people having to work all night after being bitchy and not eating and stuff? Like, it would just not fly. That's cool though. Haha, way to take a note from my book and be all dramatic and make people laugh at you instead of getting mad. Hot dress, ps. <3.