Another Eid al-Fitr in Marrakech

By 7 a.m, thousands of people already filled the boulevard.  The street was lined with plastic woven mats for people to sit and pray on, but the crowds were larger and spilled over onto the sidewalks, the island dividing the street, the doorway of the police station and the small sports arena.  People moved the barricades to make more room.  Men and women place their own small prayer rugs over the plastic mats and then directly on the street where the mats have ended. Eventually, there were probably ten thousand people there.

The cool morning breeze competed with the intense rays of the sun rising almost directly in front of us. The temperature, already in the 80's, was expected to climb to 107 degrees. People began turning their backs to the sun's rays while they waited for the prayer to start. Some of the women shaded themselves with the ends of their scarves.  Some put their prayer rugs over their heads to block what seemed to be laser-like heat from boring directly down into their skulls.  Female volunteers carried cups and gallons of water through the crowd of women, providing water to whichever women or children signalled for a drink.

Most of the men were dressed in long thobes--white, beige, grey, brown, black, striped, even plaid.  The women wore every color and pattern imaginable.  Not just black or brown, but magenta, teal, green, blue, turquoise, rose, and lavender in solids, geometric designs, flowered patterns of cotton, silk, synthetic materials.

At 6 a.m. the call over the loudspeakers had started:  Allahu Akbar, Subhanallah, Allahu Akbar. I could hear it clearly from my house 2 blocks away. Last year the crowd could hear the imam perfectly. Unfortunately this Eid, the 2nd speaker system--where we were seated and about more than a city block from the imam--had degraded in quality as time went on.  At a little past by 7:30 a.m. when the time the prayer started, pretty much all we could make out were the Allahu Akbars and the Salaams at the end.  There was just no hope of hearing the khutbah, and at least a couple of thousand of us left right after the salat.

Yet even with the technical failure, I realized afterward that when we stood and made the prayer, I had forgotten all about the heat of the still rising sun.  During the prayer, it just wasn't hot anymore.

Ramadan Eating in the Town of Yousouffia, Morocco

Tagine in a meal cooked slowly in a clay dish over a low fire

Every Ramadan is different.  There is no way of knowing at the start of any Ramadan what blessings will come from it, what lessons will be learned, or what difficulties will be relieved.  Ramadan has been so full for me this year, I don't even know where to start.  There is my Moroccan family, which welcomes me and will feed me so much that, if I'm not careful, I could find myself gaining weight even though I'm fasting. 

There are new friends.  I spent the second week of Ramadan in a small city called Yousouffia. The food at the end of a day's fast, was excellent.  I had a Moroccan vegetable for the first time, the Arabic name of which I've unfortunately forgotten, that looks and tastes almost exactly like a cucumber.  It's a bit longer than a regular cucumber and even though it's the same dark green on the outside and light green on the inside, it has slight furrows or ridges down the length of it, like a pumpkin.  It's served grated and chilled, with a tiny bit or sugar or some other preferred seasoning.

The house in Youseffia was a large, rambling single-story home with a large yard that tended to stay about 20 degrees cooler inside than outside, even without air-conditioning.  The yard is landscaped, with lime trees, grass, and potted plants.  In the backyard, there is a pen with space for turkeys, chickens and a rabbit.

The mother was a well-organized cook who prepared meals early in the day that were chilled or easily reheated for breaking the fast.  Each day she made and then chilled yogurt for the next morning's meal.    She prepared her version of traditional Ramadan tomato-based soup with lentils or garbanzo beans, called harira, for dinner each day, letting it simmer slowly for hours.  Homemade pizza or meat-filled turnovers were baked in the oven outside the back door (which kept the heat out of house).   

She made bread in her backyard oven as well, or made pancakes called beghrir or pan-breads early in the afternoon. There were also sweets and a sort of Moroccan granola, called seelo, that she made and stored beforehand in huge quantities enough to last the whole month of Ramadan.  Seelo is toasted wheat, not oats, so it has a finer texture.   All of that food, except for the morning yogurt and ceelo, were ready for iftar, our first meal when we broke fast at sunset.

After Maghrib, the sunset prayer, and the food, we left for the big mosque for Isha, the night prayer, and taraweh, the special Ramadan prayers. Walking slowly and talking with friends most of the way, we generally arrived home around 11 pm.

The main course, to be eaten around midnight after all of the special Ramadan prayers were done, was often a tagine, a meal of meat, chicken or fish and slow-cooked with potatoes or other vegetables in a clay cooker over a slow fire.  This was also cooked early in the day and heated to a finger-burning hotness when it was time to eat.