Thinking of a friend

Today is the three year anniversary of the death of a friend from an infection related to HIV/AIDS.

Thinking of him today.

One week later...

I've been fasting for a week now. I am feeling:

Exhausted
Fulfilled
Thirsty
Calm
Stressed

I haven't quite yet figured how to stay sane and healthy during Ramadan, so it's a bit of trying to keep my former Cairo schedule of staying up until 3 am and waking up at 8 but minus that lovely dose of high quality Nescafe in the am to jump start my day. I contemplated drinking a cup of coffee at 4 am when I wake for Suhoor, but the thought of being vibrant and bouncy and then attempting a return to slumber sounds downright painful.

My biggest inspiration and motivation is the people around me who are also fasting, particularly the ones that resist the anger that often arises when you are lacking in your basic, or not so basic needs. I have seen more fights during Ramadan (four in one night) right before iftar, than ever before, but also many more people being considerate to those around them. I think fasting can bring out very different sides of a person.

Thank you to everyone who has encouraged me and broken fast with me in the last week. Looking forward to the rest of the month.

An hour and a half to iftar.

Ramadan Kareem

fasting the first day

Day one of Ramadan:

My first real day of voluntary Ramadan fasting – a much different take on the Holy Month than my time in Jordan when I would stand out in the sun for hours in public, unable to eat, or drink except when scarfing down a snickers bar in the secrecy of a bathroom stall, or swigging a drop of water before leaving for work.

As I began my daily routine, I realized I had all sorts of questions about the dos and don’t of fasting. So I call up my teammate.

“Am I allowed to brush my teeth”

“Yes, but don’t swallow it”

“Make up? Am I allowed to wear make up?”

“You’re not supposed to wear make up in the first place, but it’s not something strict here, so do whatever”

“Deoderant?”

“yes, you can, but no extra perfume”

Whew. The usual 45 minutes it takes me to get ready is drastically cut down by the lack of this whole breakfast thing. Quite convenient. Off to the office I go, where I spend the day looking at my tongue trying to see if it is turning white yet, a sure sign that you are fasting and not drinking water, and reading about various rules and regulations of Ramadan. Some key ones:

The things which invalidate the fast are of two kinds. The first one requires Qada (only making up missed days), the other one not only requires Qada but also Kaffarah(a penalty).

The following are the things that require Qada only:

1. Eating or drinking intentionally. This includes non-nourishing items taken by mouth.
2. Deliberately causing oneself to throw up.
3. The beginning of menstruation or post-childbirth bleeding even in the last moment before sunset.
4. Ejaculation for reasons other than sexual intercourse.
5. Intending to break the fast before sunset even if one changes his mind, since intention is one of the pre-requisites of the validity of fasting.
6. Eating, drinking or having intercourse after dawn on the mistaken assumption that it is not dawn yet. Similarly, engaging in these acts before Maghrib on the mistaken assumption that it is already sunset.

Things that not only require Qada but also Kaffarah are the following:
1. Sexual intercourse during fasting(dawn to dusk). The penalty is to fast an additional period of 60 continuous days. If one is not able to do so then he must feed sixty poor people-one average meal each.

2. Before the days of the Prophet Muhammad(S.A.W.), slavery was a common practice in the Arab world. Islam eliminated slavery from the society in a very short period of time. A useful approach was to allow people free a slave as a charity or as a penalty for a sin. Thus during the time of the Prophet(S.A.W.), setting a slave free was the penalty one must pay as a kaffarah, if he or she had a slave. *

*from Islam for Today

Overall the fasting was not as difficult as anticipated – the most challenging moment was standing at this sweets store for 45 minutes, waiting in line as the workers furiously cut the various sweets and loaded them onto paper trays overwhelmed by the weight of sugar and honey.

It all ended with rather untraditional but entirely delcious southeast Asian iftar of khawaget, ie foreigners, complete with wonderful tom yum soup, pad thai and chicken in peanut sauce. As the first part of the call to prayer ended I munched on my dates and drank a glass of milk, happily closing my first official day of Ramadan in Cairo.

Magical Collision - Part Two

And this brings me to my Ramadan experience.

Suhoor is the last meal of the night before the fast begins again until sundown the next day. Generally people wake up at 4 am before the morning prayer or stay up with friends talking, smoking sheesha and enjoying the festivities of Ramadan before returning to a state of abstention as the sun rises.

I went for suhoor at 1 am with friends to this place called El Gesh, which in Arabic means, the little donkey. Beautiful paintings that look as though a five year old decided to draw lots of dancing donkeys adorned the baby blue walls of the restaurant. During Ramadan the place overflows and there are tables all over the street, with people standing like hawks above your table to snatch it up the moment that you have finished your delicious fuul beans, eggplant and yogurt.


We brought along a large crate of little yogurts, which everyone's mother tells them quenches your thirst during your fast if it is the last thing you eat before beginning to fast again. We followed along and squeezed the yogurt out like a jello shot, sans spoons.

Plans for sheesha and juice were quickly upbraided by slumber and I fell asleep after an amazing night that started with the celebration of the year 2000 and ended with the beginning of Ramadan.

Magical Collision - Part One

Two very different occasions serendipitously occurred on the same night this year and I had the chance to take part in them: the start of Ramadan and the celebration of the Ethiopian new year.

I met LemLem's sister, ie the sister of my Ethiopian family in Seattle. After meeting on a random corner in Maadi, I was whisked off to a celebration the dawning of the year 2000 in Ethiopia year with hugs and touches and mutterings of "thanks god". LemLem's sister Sefrework, though she's actually one year older, looks like a younger more vibrant version of her, wearing her hair in lovely curls and dressing in tight jeans and a cute t-shirt. I guess that's the difference that three kids and living in a refugee camp will make.

I've never seen so many gorgeous looking women -- all with their hair in curls, some wearing their hair with two small braids drawn tightly across their forehead and draped with small gold chains or cowry shells. I kick myself for not bringing a camera.

We sat watching people celebrate the new year (in their calendar, the year is now 2000...some delayed Y2K scares...) on the Ethiopian channel until it stopped broadcasting at 11 pm Ethiopian time, and then tucked in to a wonderful meal complete with injera and a variety of different spicy meaty sauces. Afterwards I showed people pictures of LemLem and the girls on my iPod and had pictures taken of me and LemLem's sister.

We hopped on a series of microbuses going from Maadi to Dokki, each time crossing a busy intersection with Sefrework holding onto my arm to protect me. Chatting with her sister, it becomes apparent that she does not know why her sister left Ethiopia in the first place – that she went to be with Tesfaye who is now her husband, that he left because he was in the military of the previous government and his life was threatened. I was telling her some things, but wondered if LemLem didn’t have her reasons for keeping some of this information secret.

We arrived at her house in Dokki and up the stairs we went to their house, "let's do some sport", she said.

She lives in a house with three other women who all clean houses in Cairo. The apartment is decked out in Jesus paraphernalia, from a life-size poster of Jesus covered in flashing Christmas lights to small framed pictures of Jesus, to black Jesus.

We sat forcing down bread after the wonderful feast we had before and then they had the brilliant idea to dress me up in the white Ethiopian Christmas/New Years/Easter wear, complete with white high heels and take turns posing with me in front of life-size Jesus as well as the pouring Ethiopian coffee. I remember vividly walking into LemLem’s apartment and finding her squatting on the living floor roasting coffee beans on a single burner, smoke everywhere, the fire alarm covered with a plastic bag.

”You want to call LemLem?”

I haven’t talked to LemLem in over a year. When I left for Jordan she was crying and upset that I was leaving and her two girls, then 4 and 7, did not understand that when I left their apartment that day, it meant I would not see them for quite some time. We went to the public library to set up a gmail account, logging in over and over again and sending emails to my account that said “hi annika. This is lemlem”. But once I got to Jordan, nothing.

I hear her voice on the phone, sounding so quiet and small. So young sounding, for a brief second I thought it was her 7 year old daughter. “Annika, I love you Annika. The girls are asking about you. It was Bathlehem’s birthday on the 4^th of July and she kept asking where you were”.

We talked for a while longer about her baby who needs heart surgery in a few months and her own health conditions which does not sound good. She had a surgery after giving birth two months ago and has not been the same since.

I sat on the couch after hanging up the phone laden with heavy knowledge. I thought about why I hadn’t tried harder to contact them while I was in Jordan or Cairo, why I hadn’t visited them when I went home for a week in February. About why I’m the worst godmother ever to Achille & Magdelene’s baby in Cameroon. I’ve been carrying this feeling of guilt around all morning.

The clock strikes midnight and I’m back to normal me. Ethiopian dress comes off, heels come off and there I go, on my way to celebrate Suhoor, the last meal before fasting begins for Ramadan…

The Ethiopians

In a happy twist of fate, I am about to have a reunion of sorts.

Well, not quite a reunion.

Before I left for Jordan I was volunteering with an Ethiopian refugee family in Seattle. They'd been in Yemen for 14 years after he was exiled from his country in 1991. The wife moved into the refugee camp just to be with him. Now that is love.

So I left Seattle and came to Jordan and lost touch though my mom would periodically call them to check to make sure everything was ok in their lives and that the oppressive bureaucracy of the United States that you see when you are a recent immigrant wasn't crushing them too much.

Yesterday I got an email from my mom telling me she received a phone call from LemLem, the mom of the family I worked with. They had a baby girl!!! That is the good news. The bad news is that the baby has a congenital heart defect and they are afraid to get the surgery that would help her. Medicine in a foreign country is a frightening thing and I can completely comprehend a distrust for the shiny metal getting near my kid.

and then a bit of good news. LemLem's sister lives in Cairo! I called her today and will meet up with her this weekend. I can't wait to see the look on her face when I show her pictures of LemLem and her two daughters that I'm sure she has never seen because they were separated for so long while living just across a small bit of land mass and water.

back from turkey and sharm

i'm sunburned

exhausted

rejuvenated from seeing old friends and making new ones.

a bit more cynical about youth and peace

happy to be back in the smog and life of cairo.

countdown to ramadan begins...now.