What is Ramadan?
Ramadan is a month long fast practiced by Muslims. Following the fast is one of the five pillars of Islam (the others being believing in God and the prophet Mohammed, prayer 5 times daily, giving to the poor, and the hajj to Mecca), so it is pretty important. Besides the fast, it is also a month when Muslims strive to be especially religious and pious. The lunar month is brought to a close by a party, which, from what I can tell, is what everyone is most excited about.
The Pre-Game: Endless Marriage Ceremonies
The two or three weeks preceding Ramadan are host to far too many marriages to count. Seriously, I tried to count the number of marriage convoys/parades going past my house one evening and stopped after there were more than five in an hour. The reasons for this are two-fold.1) You cannot have celebratory ceremonies during Ramadan, so anyone thinking of getting married over the next month rushes to get it done before. You can get married during Ramadan, but all the fun parts (dancing, fasting, consummating the marriage) are banned so most people don’t. Of course, there are the scrooges that don’t want to pay for the DJ, the meal, renting the chairs and tents, etc. and so have a marriage during Ramadan, but those are rare since all Guineans love a good party, even at their own expense. 2) Ramadan is a month of two extremes: fasting and feasting. This means there is a lot of food preparation and cooking involved, so men rush to find wives to cook for them. This isn’t just a push by the men, though, as some wives hope their husband will take on another wife to help shoulder some of the extra work during Ramadan.
Why Fast?
For Muslims, fasting represents putting oneself in the shores of the poor and hungry, humbling those who never feel the pangs of an empty stomach. I fast both because I like what it represents and because it is a great way to be integrated. Everyone gets really excited when they find out the toubabu is fasting and I’ve even won points with some of the more reserved members of my community. Also, I just wouldn’t feel right working alongside the women in my groupement, asking them to undertake projects and the extra work that comes with it, if I weren’t fasting with them.
What You Can and Can’t Do
There are a lot of things that are restricted during Ramadan. The big ones are:
- eating and drinking between the first and last prayer of the day (about 4AM – 7PM). This includes saliva, which means a whole lot of public spitting.
- playing music aloud. People can’t sing, play instruments, or listen to the radio. The exception to this is the readings from the Koran. I have heard a lot of suspiciously pop-sounding Koran renditions this past month
- having sex during the day, although with all the spitting going on, I can’t see this being too big a temptation.
Besides those, there are some less faux-pas such as swearing, getting into heated arguments, and beating your wife and/or child that seem to take place with the same regularity as before. Especially the arguing one. Strangely enough, fasting doesn’t make peaceful conflict resolution any easier.
As with all codes, there are also behaviors one must take up, or are at least strongly encouraged, such as:
- women dressing more conservatively, although this only affects the hip, mini-skirt-and-leggings wearing girls from Conakry
- extra prayers, especially at evening prayer time, which means the normal 10-minute prayer lasts up to an hour now. the last ten days of Ramadan, there is also a 4-hour prayer session starting at midnight that you are supposed to attend.
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Who Fasts?
The general rule is any Muslim over the age of twelve. However, there are exceptions for the extremely old, women who are pregnant, nursing, or menstruating, and people with a disease or disability for whom fasting may be dangerous. It is also bad luck to fast while traveling.
But who really fasts?
From what I can tell, basically everyone who is able fasts, from those I have never seen go to mosque to women in head-to-toe coverings. It is just as much a cultural part of life as it is religious. Plus, those fasting get to break the fast with special dishes, tea or coffee, salads, juices, and extra-sugary bouille. It only ends up being about a third of my community who fasts, however, since 50% of the population is younger than 15 and, save the rare instance of family planning, women are more often than not pregnant or nursing.
The Hardest Part
Surprisingly enough, the lack of food part of fasting wasn’t that hard, If I’m working in the bush, I often won’t eat until I get back around 4 PM, so it’s only a few extra hours. Not drinking is a completely different story. It is hot here, and I usually average 4L of water a day. Trying to meet my day’s H20 quota in the two hours before going to sleep is a bit difficult and results in a lot of midnight trips to the latrine. Luckily, Ramadan falls during the rainy season this year, so it is not nearly as hot and dry as March or April. I have no idea how people manage when that happens.
The other part I struggled with was waking up at 4 AM to eat, I would roll out of bed in a daze, cram a couple handfuls of rice in my mouth, and attempt to fall back asleep just as the very loud prayer from the next door mosque would start. Afer several restless hours, I would finally get up at nine or ten, extremely groggy and having wasted most of my morning. Towards the end, I decided I preferred to be hungry rather than tired and slept through the 4 AM mealtime.
Et le gaspillage commence… (and the wastage starts)
This was what my counterpart said the first day of Ramadan, when his sister-in-law showed him the 90 000 GF three-piece suit she had bough for Le Vieux, who is two years old. It also came with 30 000 GF shoes (brown ones, and I didn’t have the heart to tell her they really clashed with the black suit). Ramadan in Guinea is a little like Christmas in America, with lavish spending on unnecessary things, although I, as of yet, haven’t heard of anyone being stampeded at the local market in the rush to buy the newest soccer cleats (EDIT: The last three days of Ramadan, leading up to the big fete, the market was absolutely nuts and verging on 3 AM Black Friday Wal-Mart chaos).
Through the month, in contrast to the fasting, families buy new clothes, cellphones and weaves (as in the hairpiece). Kids also have spending money for once and buy balloons, candy and juice with every last 500 GF bill they have. Then there is the celebration at the end of the month, with a giant feast, DJ or griot, and sodas all around (I drank three that day). Not to mention the fancy clothes for that night, which can run up to 500 000 GF for a complet (pagne wrap, shirt, and headscarf). To put that in perspective, my salary, which I live very comfortably on, is a little less than 1 000 000 GF.
The timing of Ramadan this year is right before hunger season, when rice has not yet been harvested, so prices are high and people have little saved. With the spending of Ramadan, even those families that had planned to save something for this season may be struggling, having spent their savings during Ramadan. Most Guineans, as evidenced by my counterpart’s comment, are aware of this predicament, but just as we cannot resist that shiny new iPad or pair of designer shoes come December, the tradition of spending doesn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon.
The Moment We’ve All Been Waiting For
After 30 days of fasting, the moon finally appears in the sky and Ramadan is over. The funny thing is we don’t know it’s the end until the day of. Some Islamic countries will reference the lunar calendar and set a date for the final celebration, but others, Guinea among them, prefer their citizens to live in suspense. This results in everyone running around like crazy the last 4 or 5 days of Ramadan trying to prepare for the fete and not wanting to be caught unawares. The market was kind of like a grocery store before a snowstorm hits or on Thanksgiving morning.
The actual day began with a mass prayer. Because we wouldn’t all fit in the mosque, we lined up along the road and large space used for soccer games and markets next to my house. As we sat waiting for the imam to start the prayer, the poor walked through the crowded prayer mats collecting ablations. Shortly after it began, it started raining so I ran home with my counterpart’s wife (we’re only ‘fair-weather’ believers). We spent that morning sitting around talking and drinking tea as the women prepared the big meal for that afternoon. Someone had brought home part of a cow that had been slaughtered at her office, which we had left smoking over a charcoal stove for two days, that was to be the highlight of the meal. We ate until we were stuffed and then spent an hour relaxing, not unlike Thanksgiving in America.
The afternoon was spent greeting everyone and their brother (and their brother’s brother). This is a really important part of the holiday and everyone visits all of his or her relatives, friends, colleagues, bosses, and acquaintances. I tagged along with Conde as he made the rounds, being welcomed with more rice, soda, candy, and other delicious goodies at each house. Along the way children ran up to us saying “I ye salima fo”, basically ‘Happy Holidays’, after which we’re supposed to give them money. In this way, I guess Ramadan is a little like Halloween too.
The festivities continued on for three days, with most people having the day off work or skipping it if they didn’t. All the children spent their ‘trick-or-treating’ money on sunglasses and mini soccer balls and the teenagers got together to rent speakers and have dances. Photographers roamed the streets asking people if they wanted their photos taken for a small fee. Eventually it all wound down, kids popped their soccer balls, and all the photos were distributed. Things have eventually returned to normal, at least until Tabaski comes, the even bigger celebration 70 days after the end of Ramadan.
