The end of Ramadan was this last Tuesday – at least in Cameroon. It started September 1 – in Cameroon – and marked the beginning of the Muslim fast, where Muslims old enough don't eat or drink from sunup to sundown for a lunar month. The keyword here is lunar.
I broke the fast a few times with Yotti. The meal consists of bouille, which is kind of like porridge but sweet and good, beignets and kosé (white bean beignets, one of my favorite foods), and the usual couscous with a sauce.
I didn't actually do Ramadan, although some volunteers do it for solidarity with their Muslim friends and just because it's something different. My main qualm with Ramadan is the getting up early. As you're still allowed to eat and drink while it's dark, Muslims wake up by 5 AM to fill up before the day breaks. No way, José. Another negative is that by the third week, Muslims start getting a little grumpy and tired. I do take advantage of Ramadan because it's the only time when kosé is available in Lagdo during the evening. For whatever reason, the women that make it in town decide that they'll only sell it in the morning when it's not Ramadan.
I was really confused at the end of the fete. People were telling me it was Tuesday, one calendar I have said it was Wednesday, but another calendar I have said it Thursday. The only explanation I can think of, because it's a lunar-based month, it's cloudy or the moon cycle is different depending on where you are on the globe. (I'm thinking it's the latter…)
The fete is also one of the most low-key parties imaginable. I remember the last two years when I'd wander around in the late morning, the fete was pretty much over and people were just sitting around. Muslims sure know how to party.
The coolest thing about this year is that the morning of the fete, which is called Id al-Fitr in Arabic, there is a huge public prayer. I knew of these big community prayers from Fete du Mouton, which is two months after Ramadan. (Sheep; it celebrates when Abraham was about to sacrifice his son, and you traditionally sacrifice a sheep for the fete. Nowadays, there are a lot of sheep meandering around Lagdo munching on grass. Little do they know…) Last year, I happened to be traveling from Buea to Yaoundé on the fete du mouton, and when we passed through Douala, there were hundreds upon hundreds of men in various open spaces in the city praying. In Lagdo for Ramadan, it was a much smaller affair, but it was still cool to see all the Muslim men (there were some women in a line in the back, but not many) in their nice boubous in rows in a field. Although I think sometimes the orthodoxy of Islam is a little too much, there is something powerful about their mass prayers.
