Breaking the Fast

(c) Barbara Cooper, 2004

I was on the train, travelling between Rabat and Marrakech in Morocco, eating a late breakfast. I could have breakfasted at the hotel before I left Rabat but a sweet black coffee was all I had managed, at sunrise, while the ancient call to prayer echoed over the city. Rabat, in the early morning sun, was at its best, with few people about, the fountains playing and the elegant wide boulevards lined with tall palm trees. I buttered a bread roll and tucked it into my pack to eat later.

Moroccan trains have corridors and compartments like old fashioned British trains. I found a seat and allowed the dusty brown landscape to slip by with its Biblical houses, minarets, donkey carts and acres of olive groves. The smell of Africa sent me to sleep. When the train stopped at Casablanca, I woke up. It was a very ordinary station, with no excitement or glamour as one is led to expect from old films, just plain cream coloured walls and a small mosque on the platform and a pair of shoes left outside on the mat. There was a hole-in-the floor toilet and the ubiquitous patterned tiles in the waiting room. It was time for breakfast.

I unwrapped the bread roll and tucked in. It was nearly ten o'clock and I was hungry. The train started up again and off we went south towards the Atlas Mountains.

When the ticket inspector arrived, tall in his grey uniform and a peaked cap like a gendarme's, very French, he wasn't interested in my ticket, he was interested in my food. He aimed a stream of Arabic invective at me, pointing and waving his arms, his black moustache bristling and twitching. His Arabic was interspersed with French, neither of which was comprehensible to me. When he blew his whistle, loud and long a portly little man, came bustling down the corridor. The ticket collector pointed at my croissant. The little man regarded me scornfully.

'Touriste?' he said as if it were a disease.

I nodded with my mouth full. I didn't know what all the fuss was about. I waved my ticket at them to prove I was on the right train and had paid for my seat.

'Aha,' he said, briskly, shaking his head.

He folded his arms, and, looking at me severely, said one word only.

'Ramadan.'

I had breached the code of etiquette and good manners. Muslims would have to wait till sunset, 'when a black thread cannot be distinguished from a white one', before they could break their fast. Not even a sip of water would pass their lips till then. I had forgotten the tourists' golden rule during Ramadan. 'Do not eat in public.'

'Billet!' snapped the ticket collector. His clipper bit through the ticket with a loud click. He tossed his head, curled his lip and went on his way. The little round man nodded at me and withdrew, job done. A few moments later he was back wearing a cheeky grin.

'Joke,' he said in English. 'Enjoy,' and, waving his fingers at me, he skipped away along the corridor.

Ramadan doesn't only forbid food and drink for a month during daylight hours; cigarettes, sex and other forms of indulgence are excluded, too. Everyone is fasting. Shops shut early. Museums and tourist sites are closed. In some Muslim countries you can be arrested for eating and drinking in front of someone who is fasting. It is a time of self discipline, a time to empathise with people who are always hungry. It celebrates the time when Allah chose Muhammed to be his prophet.

Late in the afternoons the streets are busy with people rushing home. This is when tempers are short and accidents occur. Everyone is hungry, thirsty and tired. Smokers feel particularly stressed. There is impatient shouting and running and motor horns blasting. Then suddenly there is silence and the streets are deserted for over an hour as the people break their fast by having a light meal of bread, dates and apricot juice. After an hour or two the streets are full of friendly people again.

In the summer Muslims who live in the UK have a particularly hard time when Ramadan occurs, as they cannot break their fast between about 4.00am and 10.00pm; they are not even allowed a cool drink on a hot summer's day. To those of us in the UK, for whom religion is a marginalized activity, to know that everyone you see in a Muslim country is observing Ramadan, can be a revelation. Islam is their way of life; it is with them all the time. It is not uncommon to see men praying in the street. Before they pray they wash their hands, face, arms and feet so they are clean outside as well as inside. After breaking their fast, the people say prayers and then eat their main meal.

However, a visit to the souk comes as a bit of a surprise to the tourist who is trying hard to respect the principles of Ramadan. The narrow alleyways are lined with tiny shops, piled high with goods. It may be Ramadan but stalls have pyramids of dates, figs, apricots, almonds, pomegranates, oranges, lemons, apricots, prunes, dates, aubergines and peppers. There are deep fried pastries dipped in honey, fried chicken sprinkled with icing sugar and cinnamon fried in flaky pastry, and pigeon pies. The visitor is urged to taste, to sample and to buy pancakes, couscous, cheeses, olives, onions, huge tomatoes and melons, apples as big as pumpkins, sweet potatoes, grapes, sausages, shellfish and chillies. Unused bread is gathered up and made into sweets, fried in olive oil. Bread is sacred and many people kiss their bread before eating it. The stalls are packed to the ceiling with the stall holder sitting in a hole in the middle, surrounded by the food he cannot even nibble.

The train draws up in Marrakech. In the evening, after sunset, I make my way to the crowded Jemma el Fna, the open square between the souk and the Koutoubia Mosque. There, the jugglers, snake charmers, musicians, teeth-pullers, magicians and fortune tellers entertain the crowds of people. Cobras that refuse to perform are given a sharp kick or are bashed with a drum. A boy waves a menu under my nose. It is written by hand in Arabic and not very good French. He takes my arm and sits me on a bench facing a table of food and a fire. He brings me aubergines and peppers, sausages, kebabs and bread, all cooked in the open air by lamplight. The place smells of food and spices. Everyone is friendly and happy. Good tempers have been restored and Ramadan is over for another day.