Volume #2 Issue# 3 November 2005 - Hunger and Thirsting…

As many of you know this past month has been the Islmic annual time for fasting.  Ramadan is when Muslms worldwide fast every day from sun up to sun down.  For a whole month restaurants are closed at lunch, and guests coming into your home may refuse the traditional cup of tea.  They are trying to prove themselves pious by participating in one of the five pillars of Islam.  The month ends with one of the biggest holidays of the whole year.  In YOU it is called Roza Heyt.  The festivities last for at least three days as family, friends and neighbors go from house to house visiting each other and eating. 

Every house you go into has a table spread with so many snacks.  Some of this food was being prepared during the fast time so that they would be read for the celebration to follow.  The YOU language even has its own distinct verb that it uses to describe this time of post-fasting visitation.  For days before the fast ended my teacher was telling us about what food she was preparing.  I even had a friend who was over one day and was telling me at eleven in the morning what she was planning to eat for dinner that night once the sun went down.  It is a fast that in many ways seems to focus more on food than anything else.  The YOU people are hungry.