Throughout Cairo, during August and the beginning of September, it is not unusual to pass closed restaurants with many tables and chairs sitting out front. People may sit at the tables, but they have no food or no water. I quickly learned that the poor citizens of Cairo were partaking in one of the harshest holidays in Islam, Ramadan. For everyone who participates you can not eat or even drink anything all day long until the last prayer of the day has begun. After the prayer has begun, millions of hungry people inhale whatever food is placed before them.
For many Christian Westerners, it is impossible for us to imagine fasting all day for an entire month. In addition, it is even harder to imagine entire cities closing the majority of their restaurants to respect this holy month. This is the reality of Ramadan in non-secular Muslim nations.
The most similar day that, as Christians, we can relate to is lent. For many Americans we give up medial items such as television and video games, how strong of us, but giving up TV and movies, as I have done in the past, just doesn't quite compare. It is as if we are comparing checkers to chess, both have a similar similar structures, but they just don't compare as games. Ramadan is a twisted holy month that makes everyone in the area suffer. Lent has become a minor inconvenience for American Christians those that choose to participate.
Everyone I interact with all day long is constantly suffering. The children no longer skip and play in the streets during the day, instead the drag there feet where ever they go and when they can they stay inside and sleep.
It wasn't unusual around mid-afternoon, during Ramadan, to pass a group of guards on the American University in Cairo campus slouched in their chairs trying not to fall asleep. They look both tired and unhappy. A few hours later I would pass those same guards after nightfall and they would be cheerful, chatty and every guard fashioned the largest smile you can imagine on a wornout Arab man.
I witnessed one man walking with his food in his hands thanking God and everyone around him because he could finally eat. Ramadan is harsh and cruel. It was designed that way, because once it is over the experience becomes the greatest gift.
One day while I was walking around town I began to ask a shop keeper about what he thought about Ramadan. He said simply, "fasting for this long allows me to enjoy food again. Each night I become thankful that I can eat."
A hotel manager in the small costal town of Dahab on the Sinai put his agony into words perfectly. He spoke as he casually drank a cup of coffee dangled a cigarette in between his lips, "all day long I've wanted a cup of coffee and a cigarette, but I couldn't until it was dark. Now that Ramadan is over I can enjoy my two favorite past times all day long!"
The dramatic change that overcomes everyone was epic. Those grouchy old men that you thought simply hated you because you are you became the most talkative and loving man once the sun set and they could eat.
As my unintentional daily fast would come to a close I started to understand this shopkeepers words. Food was no longer a routine. I ate because I was hungry, not because it was time too. I began to understand that so often I go to eat lunch simply because there is a societal understanding that at 12pm I should eat. Ramadan disobeys this understanding, and those participating (intentionally or unintentionally) begin to understand what it feels like to be hungry, not just obeying a set routine.
I must be honest, I am not sad that Ramadan is over. It is a wonderful feeling to eat at any time of the day, but I want to maintain the feeling of choosing to eat when I am hungry. As Americans we don't really understand what this feeling is like. With food available nearly everywhere we look there are few times we find it hard to eat.
Currently, a large portion of our World's population spends much of the day hungry. It was a unknown feeling to me before I landed in Cairo, but I can honestly say I know what it is like to feel hunger and I am thankful to have felt it.
While I don't plan to fast anytime soon, I know I will eventually want to. It is a strange feeling to appreciate hunger, but I have found that I want to intentionally fast. Until then, I will consciously enjoy my meals, and give thanks for having them.
