Log margin notes:
Moroccans Take the Challenge
Ramadan is the Muslim holy month best-known for the obligation of the faithful to fast during daylight hours.
In fact, beyond eating, smoking, swearing and fighting are all prohibited and generally best-behavior is required throughout. The month itself appears consistently on the Islamic calendar, but slides 16 days earlier each year against the Christian calendar.
The holiday also presents two great challenges for a non-Muslim visitor to a Muslim land, particularly one who is here to interact and not simply observe or even sight-see.
The first problem is simply of logistics.
The first meal of the day is served at sundown and is heralded from the minerets by the muezzin in every locality. Traditionally, the fast is broken in the same fashion as the prophet Mohammed was said to, with dates. After the dates, the traditional Moroccan break-fast is followed with hard-boiled eggs, bread and olive oil, juice (often more of a milkshake), coffee (often more of a cafe au lait), shebekia (fried sugar cookies) and soup.
It is not uncommon in some households for people to push back from the table and nap on the floor in the dining salon just a few inches from where they sat and ate break-fast.
Whether nap or no, the next meal is served a few hours later and is quite often a tajine. A tajine is both the name of the dish and the dish in which the meal is served. A conical clay lid is removed from the plate below revealing a stew typically consisting of root vegetables, meat and vegetable oil. The tajine is placed in the center of the table and for each guest to reach into with a piece of bread to scoop a small chunk of vegetable or meat (and almost always in that order.)
Fruit is a typical dessert which is followed by a few precious hours of sleep before the household is again awake under dark skies for one last meal before the muezzin again sounds the call for another day's fast to begin. The final nightly meal may closely resemble a normal late-morning or afternoon tea served during the rest of the year. There is, of course, tea (an imported greent tea, heavily flavored with mint and sugar), bread, olive oil, honey, jam and butter.
Once the sun comes up on another day, many wearied and thirsty people go to work, but many, by way of preparing for another day's fast, are sleeping in. The provincial capital of Azilal (by no means a large city) is almost entirely shuddered at daybreak. The small city is home to a disproportionately large amount of cafes which all remain closed until just before nightfall. Most shops and businesses do operate during the holy month, but frequently on irregular holiday schedules.
Americans Take the Challenge
"Is tazumt?" is how it is pronounced in the Berber dialect of Tashelheit spoken in the Central Atlas region. That is, "are you fasting?" in English.
The Lost Nav was not. As someone who fasts annually on the primary Jewish fast-day of Yom Kippur (and has also dabbled in other Jewish fast-days), I don't object to the concept. Different interpretations offer that it allows people a greater kinship with those who are unable to provide for themselves. It is a lesson in self-discipline. Some people even think it's healthy.
For me, it seems like fasting is the ultimate test of how Moroccan each volunteer is willing to be. How much will we give up our American identities for a Moroccan one?
We are told we must integrate into the communities we are posted to, in order to learn about them and win the trust of the people there; but I feel it is worthwhile to caution against over integration.
We have three goals here, in short they are: to help people, teach them about US and have US learn about them... in that order.
If an American becomes so thoroughly Moroccan, that may be a great way to learn about the native culture, but it undercuts the first two stated goals.
By creating a first impression as solely a student of culture, language and life in the host country, we are thought of as solely students. Some go as far as participating in some of the activities we are trying to correct... drinking from a communal water cup, for example. Therefore, when it is time for the student to become the teacher, from where does the authority come? After learning for so long, what does an American have to teach the Moroccan?
And by yielding so greatly the American identity, are not opportunities lost to teach about the very American culture noted in the second goal?
Let the debate rage in training sessions and cafes among the two camps of volunteers... the Moroccan side and the American side. Both have merits, but for myself and the greater good of Morocco; I will be, as ever:
American.
