Ramadan: A Gift of Time

This year, Ramadan began with a hearty laugh. There I was, returning from the Marché Yoff (my neighborhood market) at dusk, when a funny thing happened. As I passed, first the row of tailor shops, then the stalls of hardware and vegetable vendors, I noticed that I was moving against the flow of foot traffic. Everyone seemed to be turning to walk in the opposite direction. I continued to make my way towards my house however, and it was only when I broke even with the Mausoleum of the Layène brotherhood that I decided to take stock of what was taking place around me in the streets.

Indeed, young and old alike were stopping in their tracks to look west towards the sky above the market. Adolescent boys to my left were jumping up and down, a group of women hoisting babies on their backs were gesticulating excitedly, all arms pointing west to show others around them what they had so cleverly devised upon the horizon. I however, hard as I might try, could not see a thing! Squinting my eyes, I searched in vain for a plane or some strange thing in the sky. Finally a young girl, accompanied by her grandfather, approached to show me what I had been unable to see amid the mesh of electricity lines. “Le soleil, le soleil!”, she yelped, as her grandpa lead my eye with his pointer finger to the new crescent moon, a faint sliver of light resting just above the rooftops. He bopped her on the head playfully, reminding her that the month of Ramadan begins, not with a sighting of the sun, but of the new crescent moon, and went on to solemnly explain to me that this important sighting opens the holy month of Ramadan.

As Korité (or the celebration that marks the end of Ramadan) approaches, I feel a deep gratitude this year for the pause that the fast gives us. Though I was only able to fast for a portion of the month due to sickness, I feel lucky to say that, even so, over these 30-some days I was witness to many special moments, ranging from the peaceful to the downright convivial. At home in Yoff, we celebrated the passing of the sun with dates, juice made from the bissap flower, and (sinfully) late night meals. At work at ANAFA, some paid courtesy to the fast by cutting cigarettes from the routine, while others inaugurated a new routine, that of a sleepy head or foot on the work desk. And then on a trip south to the Saloum Delta, I watched delighted as a group of young boys whiled away the daytime hours in the delta, belting out reggaeton tunes as they swum and staged play fights in the shallow river water.

Different, but no less considerable, were those moments spent quietly. Idle hours passed with a hair pick, undoing a sister’s tresses. Or with a Koran resting open on one’s lap, sitting under a window sill in a mosaic courtyard. Or in the tailor’s laboratory, as he takes your measures for the outfit you will wear on Korité day. All these moments, to which I have either been privy or participated, constitute a mini universe it seeems, a container of time. All together, these moments –the nights and then their days– remind us the length of an hour, an afternoon, a day, a week, or even a month. How long is a month? How long is a year? How long is ten years? And, of course, how much longer they all seem without our family about us and food in our tummies. These 30 days have been anything but empty, as some like to say. Ramadan is not time lost, time unproductive, time idled, but time to remember, time to quiet down, time to spend with those you love. Je vous souhaite une très bonne Korité à tous!