Ramadan! It's a party for the whole digestive system

Here I am again in Quantum Associates, the fine purveyor of internet access along the Senegal road in Fara Fenni. My good friend Colleen, who I refer to as Woman most of the time, is up visiting today, and we are taking advantage of the early opening time of the café due to Ramadan. No one eats until sundown, so more could get done during the day. I say could instead of can because very little actually gets done, especially as the day wears on and people are exhausted from hunger and thirst. Woman and I were discussing what seems like a good idea in theory – eating less and valuing food more – turns out to be disastrous in practice because everyone just falls asleep all the time.
Ramadan for me has been about bread. I eat a lot of it. I usually eat a small baguette like piece of bread for breakfast most days, but since Ramadan started, I find myself eating two, or two and a half loaves a day. They eat bread to break the fast, just after seven p.m. prayer, with some tea. I eat bread during the day to keep from losing more weight and floating away in the breeze. Then I have more bread when I get back from work, because they don’t serve me any lunch. Today I took a break from bread, and made some terrible cornmeal and flour pancake disasters for breakfast. I inherited the ingredients from the two volunteers who quit the day I got here (not my fault), and not enough else to make them taste very yummy. But, for lunch we made beans and some sautéed vegetables, which was entirely yummy, and didn’t include rice or bread. And tonight the plan is to go to a restaurant, so no bread all day! A victory of epic proportions.
Besides that, Ramadan is annoying because everyone, EVERYone, asks “are you fasting?” I have decided to alternate my answers daily, so I “fasted” two days so far, and haven’t two others. I really do want to fast at some point, and see how it all is, but I need to get my feet back under me health wise, and do it for the right reasons. Not because every person I might on the street asks about it. And they scold me if I am not, and are incredulous if I say I am. And, to top it off, some people in the compound where I live want me to pray with them if I fast. Which just feels a little further than I am willing to go right now. But, it makes for interesting times.
Ramadan is good as a marker of the passing of time – when it is over, I will have been at site for six weeks, half of our initial “three month challenge” to stay away from the capital region for three months. And it’s good because it’s a way to get another glance into the culture. But mostly so far it has been more another lesson in patience and flexibility. Which is one of the reasons I am here – to have those lessons, so I should appreciate it more than I do.
The other news is slim: my bike is still reeling from the trip to Njaba Kunda, functional but just barely; I have been meeting more people in the area from other international organizations, mostly as a way to build a network for resources and ideas; and the rains haven’t quite ended, as we enjoyed a couple of midweek rainy days that kept the temperatures quite livable.
That’s the news at the moment, hope you are all well, enjoying fall and all that.