Iftar

The dinner is ready, the table is set, the stove is turned off... and yet the food sits on the table getting cold.
"What time is it?"
"I don't know. About 6:48?" I reply.
"Are you sure?" My dinner guest gets up and turns on the TV - Hotbird sattelite, channel 1: Kurdistan TV. The screen is nothing but a background image of a dust colored sky. Praying begins. "OK." My guest returns to the table and drinks a glass of water.

Although I have a lot of Muslim friends and family members, I have never really hosted dinner over Ramadan to guests who were fasting... For me as a non-Muslim (except to those who insist that because my father is Muslim - I therefore must also be Muslim), Ramadan in Erbil mostly just means that I will see fewer women out on the street, that more of the female staff and students will come to school wearing head scarves, that I should take even more care not too expose too much inappropriate skin (no short sleeves, no hemlines above ankle)... and that the cafeteria and my favorite convenient lunch spots will all closed and I should plan ahead (if I intend to eat lunch) by packing something I can eat discreetly in my office.

But for many (including my uncle in Toronto), Ramadan is a time for prayer, restraint and purification through fasting from sunup until sundown and refraining from anything excessive or ill-natured... although I have noticed that many who consume no water or food all day are ill-natured by early afternoon! My first year here, some of the older women in the Bazaar - those garbed entirely in black - hissed at some of us Western infidels, presumably for walking around with our heads (and possibly even forearms) uncovered during the Holy Month of Ramadan.

Anyway, Muslim or not, I believe in the benefits of fasting ... and so to make things easier (as I like to have company for dinner), I have gone to Kok supermarket and picked up an Iftar calendar so that I can time my evening mealtimes to coincide with Maghrib (sundown) prayers or Iftar (the breaking of the fast) this year. I am not starting my meal with dates (only one of those suckers is 66 calories... and I could eat a whole box!) or praying, but the timing does seem to make logical sense. During iftar, the entire city turns into a ghost town as everyone (shopkeepers and park gate attendants included) are away from their posts to begin eating. I might as well be eating too!