bloodyrosemccoy | Kenya Dig It? ~ Dinner Timer

People who know me are probably aware by now that I’m slightly impatient with things I deem to be nonsense. I try to be culturally relativist and understanding, but even in my own culture there’s a lot I consider to be quite stupid and inexplicable, so it’s inevitable that I would consider aspects of other cultures the same.

Which means that on the beautiful island of Lamu, one of the more conservative places in Kenya,* I had a few moments of such—mostly when I was hungry, hypoglycemic, hot, and completely unable to find food because it was Ramadhan.

Now, I am not down with fasting. I would make a lousy Muslim.** I can understand some rituals, but the concept of self-deprivation is alien to me. I would have trouble fasting even if doctors warned me that if I ate before sunset I would explode. And trust me, you don’t want me to fast. I get … shall we say, slightly ill-tempered … when I’m hungry.

So, while I’m still trying to be very understanding, let’s just say I had a very difficult time understanding why all these people were deliberately denying themselves food because somebody that said somebody said that God said they should.

But it did give rise to one entertaining ritual—the time, just before sunset, when we would all sit around and wait for the mosques.

You know those countless establishing shots of the Middle East in movies, where the muezzin goes to the top of the mosque and shouts the call to prayer? That does not happen anymore. Somebody—I suspect terrorists—has provided all the mosques in the world with large loudspeakers, so that the call to prayer can be distinctly heard by everyone. However, this is a bit redundant, since in places like Lamu every third building is a mosque, so the threat of not hearing it is minimal. As it is, the damn things raise a racket—and often the muezzins, in the time-honored tradition of morons with microphones, will finish the call to prayer and then just keep talking. Loudly. Over each other. I swear to god I heard two mosques have an argument once.

But during Ramadhan, the sound of the mosques is a particularly welcome one for the sunset prayer, because that is the time when you can eat again. And so each day, just before the call came, a certain preparation ritual would go into effect, and I got to watch it at my tutor’s house.

First, she’d cook the food while her husband came home. Then she would greet her husband. Then, as it got increasingly dimmer, she would put the food out on the cloth mat on the ground. And then came my favorite part: we would sit and stare at the food. Sometimes for fifteen minutes. Often she would be holding a cigarette and lighter at the ready (you’re not allowed to smoke during the day, either). And there the food would sit as the light faded, waiting for us.

Then the call would sound, and there would be a lightning quick moment of prayer—a well-practiced runthrough of up-knees-forehead-knees-up!—and then we would fall upon the food like—well, like we hadn’t eaten all day. About eight seconds later everyone’s plates would be clean.***

Now, not everyone did this. Our AD was of the opinion that one should break the fast lightly—with maybe a few dates—and then gorge oneself about twenty minutes later. But clearly, this was not how the majority did it. And so the food would sit, ready for the moment the mosques would start up their great clatter.

My memories of Lamu are good, even if they are sometimes silly. But one of the best memories I have will always be that food-watching ritual, the tense wait for the go-ahead for my hungry friends. It turned the idea of fasting into something more understandable to me—something required, but not enjoyed.

But you’ll never catch me doing it.

*This is not the same kind of “more conservative” that you’d find in, say, Iran. But on the scale in Kenya …

**And a really lousy Klingon.

***Except mine. I am incapable of cleaning my plate, and I finally figured out why: I don’t like too much sauce. I like a little bit of sauce on a lot of sauce-host, and so when I finish eating that I have all this sauce left over. And you don’t eat sauce without something to put it on.