Ramadan Karim!

The holiday season is upon us! For the last few days, the Calls to Prayer have been different in the build up to the holy month. It's been awesome to hear the differences, although we aren't sure what the different Calls each mean. 

Last night (June 17th) we got the official call that Ramadan was to begin today. Interestingly enough, this actually comes through a sort of air raid sounding alarm across town. We were fortunate to be with other people at the time so we knew what it was and not to just start panicking. 

Let me also say that we are in no way, shape, or form Ramadan experts. We're still learning things here, so sorry if information is incomplete. 

One of the many reasons that Ramadan is celebrated is to remind people that there are others who are less fortunate and as a chance for everyone to share their resources with everyone in their community (or so we were told by one of our advanced English classes). Last night, we were asked by a member of a local association to help them sort out food for donations. We spent a few hours sorting rice, garbanzo beans, coffee, tea, sugar, oil, flour, eggs, and other dried goods into bags that they would distribute to families across Taounate. It was a great experience. 

Our schedule will get a bit wonky now for the next couple weeks. The Dar Chebab is closed during the day and open after people break fast each night. So now, our English classes will be from 10:00 to midnight each night. While this seems crazy for some people (okay like for Alexis), it really makes sense with the community schedule. People spend all day resting, preparing food for breaking fast, and going to the mosque, then celebrating with family when the sun goes down (sometime around 7:30 or 8:00), then a trip to the mosque, then people go out to socialize. Everyone returns home before the first Call to Prayer (around 4:00 am) for another small meal, then off to bed and you start all over. Simply put, our schedules flip completely. 

Things that are not allowed during fasting hours:

Eating

Drinking (including water)

Smoking

Wearing make-up

Using swear words or talking unfavorably about other people 

Brushing your teeth 

Wearing Chapstick or lotions

... And other stuff that we'll learn along the way

We've been invited to break fast with approximately 10 different families, so we'll also have some different stories from those experiences, too, hopefully. It's normally done with a glass of milk and a few dates, followed by harrira (a tomato based soup with some pasta and garbanzo beans), followed by anything and everything you want all night. And, a lot of water to make up for the daylight hours. 

Here's our first sun rise!