Kool senna wenta tayib

This sentence means something like “may you be well all the year.” You use it to say happy new year, happy birthday, and “here, take this tip/bribe.” I just got to use it for the first time and I am pretty excited about it.

My little old garbage man who comes by once a month for the $1.80 I pay him to take out my garbage for the month was counting out my change and in Arabic, I stopped him when he’d given me back all but three times as much as his usual monthly fee and said “thank you, happy new year.” He is always very polite and friendly when he sees me but I scored an even bigger than usual smile this time.

I am going to be using this sentence a lot in the next couple weeks before my trip home in September. Ramadan is supposed to be a time for charity, self-deprivation, and introspection. Since I’m not Muslim, I don’t actually have any charitable obligations but since I’m not fasting, I’m not really doing much self-depriving or introspecting these days so I’ve chosen to focus on charity in the spirit of the season. It is traditional to give gifts (think big tips) to the people who work for you so their families can eat meat a few times during the months.

Usually, the idea that I would have people who work for me would be ridiculous but I seem to have amassed quite the staff in the last few months. In addition to my doorman, who does absolutely nothing (a doorman’s job is to provide security so strangers can’t get into the building, run errands for residents, and keep the common stairwell and landings lit and clean…and my doorman does none of these things and on top of that is totally incomprehensible when he speaks to me and I have to rely on his 12 year old son as communications liaison), I have a dog walker who comes every weekday to take care of Whiskey, and a cleaner who comes once a week.

It is also traditional to buy customary Ramadan sweets for one’s employees. The favorites are basboosa, a sort of cake-like dessert made of semolina (so it is flatter, denser and a little grainier than cake) and then soaked in a floral syrup, and konaffa, which is the texture and appearance of shredded wheat but with a light, crispy pastry taste wound into the shape of a bird’s nest and topped with honey and either pistachios or peanuts. Love konaffa, hate basboosa but basboosa is significantly more popular with Egyptians. When I ask Egyptians what they think of when they think of Ramadan, they smile and their eyes roll back in pleasure and they purr “basboosa!” I think it is because after fasting all day any food tastes way more amazing.

I will be back in Oregon for the feast that marks the end of Ramadan in mid-September so I won’t be around to buy anybody sweets but I might leave some cash with my office mates to get some for the office attendants who are in charge of keeping the lunch room stocked with yogurt, coffee, etc., paying for lunch orders, making copies, getting office supplies, etc. as they are all really diligent about their work and are always very polite and patient with my clumsy Arabic.

The schedule and pace of life has shifted significantly since Ramadan started on Wednesday. I thought it was hard to get my handyman to come to fix something before Ramadan, now I can’t even get him to answer the phone. Apparently the first week of fasting is the most difficult for everyone and everyone works very little or stops altogether until they adjust to the lack of food, water, cigarettes and sex between the hours of dawn and dusk. It is August and extremely hot, and as if abstaining from these necessities (excluding smoking) weren’t hard enough everyone must still venture out into the heat three times during daylight hours for prayers, and endure (I mean enjoy?) an EXTRA hour of prayers specific to Ramadan in the evening after the normal evening prayer.

The time zone itself shifted back one hour to winter time. Daylight savings is canceled for the month of Ramadan so that everyone can sleep in an extra hour before work and thus shorten, in a way, the amount of time one has to be awake feeling hungry and thirsty from the fasting. The clocks will jump ahead again for the three weeks starting at Eid el Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan, and October first, when it officially “falls back” to winter time again.

The pace of work and reliability of service, always questionable at best in Egypt, has slogged to a near-halt this first week of fasting (veteran expats say it gets better next week) meaning I cannot get my air conditioning fixed to save my life (it has been two weeks) or get the pair of pants the tailor is supposedly making for me any time soon (he said it would take a week but it has actually been SIX weeks! They’d better be pants made of gold when I pick them up). There are certain times of the day (during prayers, any time before noon when people are trying to sleep as long as possible so they don’t have to feel how much fasting sucks, and during Iftar and the special Ramadan prayers which, together, last until around 9:30pm) when everything is closed and no one answers the phone or shows up to work, even if work is sitting on the broken sofa on the street outside my apartment.

Iftar, or the daily breaking of the fast occurs around 6:40 every day and is traditionally dates and sugared tea (every beverage is heavily sugared in Egypt) followed by heavier foods with family and friends. Each day’s iftar is an event and Egyptians hop from invitation to invitation with various relatives, groups of friends, and colleagues such that Ramadan, despite the stress and difficulty of fasting during the day, made extra cruel by the fast that each year it moves earlier and earlier into the summer and thus gets longer and hotter, is a time many look forward to for the spirit of love, friendship, and community similar to what Americans feel leading up to Christmas.

The single beer distributor is closed during Ramadan and many places that serve very cheap food have closed or stopped delivery services during the day because the volume of orders drops so significantly that turning out buckets of koshery, for example, a mix of small tube shaped macaroni, chopped up spaghetti, lentils, rice, fried onions, tomato sauce, spicy sauce, and garlic isn’t a sustainable business this month. Technically no one can legally be served alcohol during Ramadan, even in restaurants and bars, but some of the older places either have grandfathered exceptions allowing them to serve to foreigners (you actually have to show your passport to order a drink if you look Egyptian to prove you have a foreign nationality) or else they are paying off the cops. Places that don’t get enough expat business to justify paying those bribes (kool senna wenta tayib, officer!) use the month to remodel. The rule against serving Egyptians is particularly unfair to the Copts, who are Egyptian and thus have no foreign passport but who obviously don’t observe Ramadan and have no religious prohibitions against drinking alcohol. They can’t get alcohol this month and thus, like many expats, stock up on beer, etc. the week before and just drink at home or in the homes of friends more than usual this time of year.

I walk the dog exactly at Iftar time now, as the streets are completely empty, no traffic, and no groups of young men sitting around the front doors of buildings drinking tea and smoking to distract the job from his central task of putting one foot in front of the other (it is soooo easy to distract a puppy!). I haven’t changed my clothing habits yet but I will dress a little more conservatively if I start getting harassed. Apparently Egyptian men who are abstaining from sex and supposedly masturbation during the day and who are supposed to be purifying themselves through this self-deprivation blame women who dress too provocatively (skirts or shorts above the knees, tops that are too low-cut, showing too much upper arm, etc. for “tempting” them to think the very thoughts they are supposed to banish. Like drinking ice water or eating a juicy burger in front of a melting, sweating fast-er, walking around in my Capri pants and short-sleeved shirt might be viewed as a betrayal of religious ideals this time of year and could get me into trouble. It is freaking hot, though, so I’m still walking around in my knee-length shorts and short-sleeved shirts until someone yells at me.

I’m sure I’ll come across more examples of Ramadan-induced chaos as the month wears on but those are the basics for now. It feels a bit like accidentally falling through a black hole into another reality where all the rules I’ve learned so far get tossed out the window and I have to learn a whole new set of cultural norms. Actually stepping into a new time zone doesn’t help counter the surreal feeling very much and, in another unexpected turn, the entire city ran out of fruit yogurt, my primary staple food, all at once yesterday, leading me to believe I am actually dreaming a terrible anxiety dream. Pinch me!