Ramazan

Author's note: This was actually written two days ago, but due to editing, scheduling conflicts, and general laziness, is only being posted today. The Author apologizes, and warns you to expect the same in the future.

Today's the second day of Ramazan. As I was writing this entry, I hadn't eaten or drank anything in thirteen hours, and rereading it after we broke fast, found that it didn't actually make any sense. So I rewrote it.

The way it was explained to me, Ramazan (Ramadan, in the US and possibly elsewhere) serves to make Muslims understand what the poor must endure. Adherents abstain from food, drink, alcohol, and sexual activity during daylight hours. However, it's worth mentioning that Ramazan moves forward ten days every year. People here speak fondly of fasts in the winter, when daylight hours are much shorter.

Fasting Muslims arise before sunrise (around four in the morning) for sahur, the morning meal. To my knowledge, there isn't a set menu: eat what'll get you through. In my family, we ate soup, pasta, cheese, bread and honey; I know another family here that eats granola, and another that doesn't fast at all. It all depends on the person. During sahur, we watched the Ramazan programming on TV. I can't understand very much of it (or any of it, actually, as my vocabulary is still rather limited to vegetables and the odd adjective), but Anne tells me that it's a university theology professor discussing the origins of Ramazan. I would also like to mention that Coca-Cola has a really excellent Ramazan-specific ad that has been airing this week. Unfortunately, YouTube is blocked here, or I'd go looking for a link. Y'all should go see if you can find it, because it is worth watching.

When we finished, we cleared the table and went back to bed and slept until around eight. Then Anne and I left the house for her office, and Baba for his. Today I met up with another Rotary exchange student I'll call Amy (names of course changed) and we wandered in the area around her office for a few hours. I also got a mildly hilarious sunburn. Those sunglasses did, in fact, block sun very well. I look rather like a confused raccoon.



Around three, Anne and I left the office and braved the traffic home. The congestion on the roads has gotten worse since I've been here, thanks to residents coming back from holiday for schoool and work. Furthermore, thanks to the fasting, tempers were running a little high and concentration was a little marred. We passed no fewer than four accidents on the way home. Most were pretty minor - a vegetable truck stopped, the sedan behind it didn't - but it was a sobering sight.

One the way home, Anne pulled over outside a fırın (bakery) and handed me a coins. "Say to them, 'Bir sıcak pide, lütfen.' It means 'One hot pide, please.' Repeat it: 'Bir sıcak pide, lütfen.'"

I repeated it a few times until I got it right, and got out of the car, clutching the coins in in a death grip.

Luckily for me, I was the only customer in the bakery. I approached the man behind the counter. "Bir sıcak pita, lütfen...?"

He hefted a pide (a sort of a spongy focaccia about the size of a medium pizza crust) and showed it to me. I nodded, and handed him my coins. He counted them, looked up sympathetically, and said something in Turkish.

"Sorry," I said, "Amerikan...just a minute," and I tore out of the shop and down to the car. "Anne, I think he says I need more money. Or that I have a lobster on my head. I'm really not sure."

Anne counted out a few more coins, and I ran back into the shop. The shopkeeper accepted them, grinning, and handed me my pita. I grinned back, and hopped down the steps to the car, and off we went again. About a block later, we passed a McDonalds (yeah, I know). It looked like any other McDonalds, except for the row of red Vespa-style scooters parked outside. There were maybe a dozen of them and they all had red carry-cases emblazoned with golden arches strapped behind the seat.

"McDonalds delivers here?" I squeaked.

My host mom shrugged. "Of course."

Does a fast-food place that delivers (aside from, you know, Dominoes) sound like the height of decadence to anyone else? And bear in mind that I was quite literally running on fumes at this point. I thought of a Big Mac, and salivated like one of Pavlov's pooches. "Can we order sometime?" I asked.

Once home, I attempted to write up a quick post and discovered that my concentration was shot and curled up with a magazine instead (Working Mother, left to me by a vacationing American before she went back to the US, bless her).



We broke fast a little before eight p.m. with a meal called iftar. I sat down fully expecting to consume every scrap of food that was on the table, and possibly the table cloth as well - and then discovered that I didn't want to. I had a bowl of soup, some bread with honey, cheese, and a few olives, and pronounced myself full.



And no, the Author didn't fast again today, although she may again sporadically during the Ramazan period in order to more fully embrace the experience. She feels that although the experience was illuminating and potentially slimming, the food here is just to good to willingly miss it.