Ramadan Kareem!

I apologize if I have kept my fans waiting, as my father contends; but I do, in fact, go to school here. I have been meaning to write this post for a few days, so hopefully the time I’ve taken to mull over exactly what I am going to say will pay off in more a more concise prose.

First, I wanted to confirm that my fasting is going strong and the father of my “Egyptian family” told me that this is because I have a “strong heart.” Most foreigners don’t make it more than a few days, if they even make it one, he told me. Thankfully, though, I am traveling to Alexandria this weekend, which gives me a reprieve from fasting as it is a journey of more than 86 (some say the minimum is 89) kilometers.

Before I started fasting, I never really understood the traditional Ramadan greeting: Ramadan kareem, “Ramadan is generous” (to which one responds allahu akram, “God is the most generous”). I couldn’t understand how being deprived of food every day for a whole month could be seen as generous. Obviously there is the argument that Ramadan is generous because it is the month in which Mohammed was first told, “Recite!” by the angel Gabriel. But the way people’s faces light up when saying Ramadan kareem betrayed a more immediate, material meaning to the phrase. It was not until I was invited to iftar (break fast) at the house of the family of my Egyptian friend (Mohammed, the lieutenant in charge of security for the hotel across the street from my building) that I grasped just how generous Ramadan can be.

Upon arriving at his family’s apartment, just past Ma’adi, we were ushered to a table and seated backs against the wall to prevent what would eventually become a much-desired escape. With just a few minutes until the call to prayer, the table began to fill with platters of chicken, rice, and potatoes (all lined with potato chips), bowls of soup, molekheya (a gelatinous sauce made from a plant known as ‘Jews’ mallow’), pickled vegetables, eggplant stuffed with garlic, cucumber and tomato salad, baskets of bread, glasses of date juice, karkedeh (hibiscus tea/juice), and kamr aldeen (a cloying yet delicious juice made from dried apricot leather). Instead of napkins, we were given towels. What made this even more impressive was that this meal was prepared twice, one for the men and one for the women, who ate hidden from our view.

As soon as the first refrain of the call to prayer (Allahu akbar, “God is the most great”) was audible we dug in. The food was delicious, but after a day of fasting, it can be hard to eat very much, with every bight, I could feel my stomach un-clinching. Slowly but surely, I got my appetite and managed to eat my share of the spread, and did more than my share on the delicious rice. Rice which Erik was also enjoying greatly until I confirmed my suspicion that the chunks of meat in it were kidneys and liver, and to my surprise heart (but that didn’t stop me from having one more helping). I was uncomfortably sated.

As I stood up—barely—I was ushered to the couch where I thought that maybe I could have a reprieve from food. But no. Next came plates full of grapes, guavas and dates, and large pieces of kunafa (imagine frosted mini wheat meets custard pie). After obligingly attempting to force something down my throat and washing it down with some tea, we leaned back and watched an exciting episode of Alias, followed by the fourth call to prayer live from Mecca. After a few hours of digesting and discussing politics with Mohammed’s father, a former general in the Egyptian army, we pried ourselves off the couch and headed home.

Just three hours later Erik and I were being ushered to Mohandeseen for an overly filling suhur by four of our Egyptian friends. But right now, I’m too hungry to describe any more food.

My point is that during Ramadan, the already ebullient, in-your-face, won’t-take-no-for-an-answer Arab hospitality is magnified ten times. It is a time when everyone is welcome to eat for free at restaurants spilling into the middle of major thoroughfares. It is also a time when zadaq (alms, one of the five pillars of Islam) is widely distributed, and when even the most secular of Muslims strives to keep the faith as best they can.

Ultimately, what “Ramadan kareem” has taught me is that God may be the most generous but Egyptians are pretty high up there on the list.