Ramadhan in America

On the first morning of Ramadhan, I woke up thinking about where I would go to do the special, nightly taraweeh prayers Muslims perform during the holy month.

I was on the train from uptown New York heading for a workshop, when I decided to do what I did whenever I had needed a service over the previous year living here: Google for a mosque near me.

One of the top results was from The Islamic Centre at New York University. On the page about Ramadhan, the very first sentences read: “It’s the first week of the hottest month in America’s busiest city. That’s stressful enough—and you’re fasting too!”

There, on the dumpy subway line, the humid summer encroaching on my skin, the significance of the moment finally dawned on me: it was my first Ramadhan in America, far away from home in Nairobi, and the continent of Africa where I had fasted in more than a dozen cities and towns.

Here in America, I was joining about 3.3 million Muslims who were fasting for close to 18 hours every day for a month.

Ramadhan coincided with the summer solstice this year, making it the longest in decades.

Longest fast

The longest I had ever fasted was for 16 hours in Egypt. But New York City was not Cairo, where a languorous mood persisted, life considerably slowed down and people were united in their hunger and thirst.

New York offered no such repose. In this fast-paced city of skyscrapers, harried residents went about their business, a silhouette of ants moving in synchronised progression.

Walking downtown at 1pm., the sun scorching above, reminded me of the origin of the word Ramadhan: dryness, burning heat.

In the streets, men in khaki trousers and striped shirts wielded lattes and iced coffees. Women in pant suits lined up at food carts to buy chicken mole and lamb gyro.

Ironically, Muslim men and women, who were observing the holy month, operated some of these street carts. Here, I thought, was New York in its definition: tolerant of your values, indifferent to your needs. Move it.

On the second morning of Ramadhan, I flew halfway across the country to Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Communalism in Minneapolis

If New York was lukewarm about the start of Ramadhan, Minnesota wasn’t. There are over 100,000 Somalis living here, and barely stepping out of the airport, I felt the communalism that Ramadhan in Minneapolis offered.

I couldn’t help but feel nostalgic about home. Much of our association with home is linked to imagery, and the visual symbols that surround us on a daily basis.

Minneapolis offered plenty of those. There were the Somali mothers, clad in their flowery scarves and full-length jilbab, their colourful clothes a contrast to the dull formality of America.

Here were the Somali fathers, beads in hand, stroking their hennaed beards, wearing white kanzus and holding their walking sticks.

There were the Somali boys and girls, walking down Cedar Avenue, mixing Somali with English, and in some instances, even Kiswahili.

I knew all these people were fasting, their stomachs rumbling when they passed the open-air coffee shops, and that thought gave me a little bit of comfort.

Watching all these scenes unfold, I thought about how Minneapolis was no different from the familiar places I knew as a child and as a reporter: the streets of Eastleigh, the alleys of Hargeisa, the markets of Mogadishu. This was home away from home.

Minnesota has also been my grandmother’s home for 15 years now. Ramadhan is a time of reflection and sharing, but also a time for reconnection.

My grandmother, vivacious and 64 this year, speaks in fluent, well-thought sentences. Just when you think she has finished one story, she surprises me with another tidbit about my mother, my grandfather and my great-grandmother.
I often wonder what stories she is delaying to tell me, what she’s storing in her encyclopedic mind, keeping it for a future date.

We walk to the mosque together. We read Koran side by side. We go shopping. We watch the news, ponder on the repercussions of Brexit, the war in Iraq, and speak about the candidacy of Donald Trump. No topic eludes our conversations, whether it is the here or the hereafter.

Most of the bonding in Ramadhan is done over food during iftar. I was invited to houses and restaurants to dine with friends and family. I met aunts whom I hadn’t seen in years, and was introduced to younger cousins who didn’t know me.

Heal and seal

I met people who knew me through social media or through my bylines. Together, we ate tender camel meat, sumptuous lamb, rice, pancakes, samosas, mint tea, cake and Coke floats. A few days into my stay, my dreams of losing a few kilos during Ramadhan vanished into thin air.

Yet nothing beat breaking bread at the Northern Spark festival. The annual arts event hosted an iftar meal for Muslims and non-Muslims at the Mill City Museum. The museum is located on the Mississippi Riverfront, and is built into the ruins of what was once the world’s largest flour mill.

Sitting there, eating dates and drinking water, surrounded by multicultural and multi-religious people all listening to the call of the prayer, was a beautiful Ramadhan moment to remember.

It also reminded me of my first iftar meal in America. A friend of mine, a Zen Buddhist, upon hearing that I was fasting proposed to make me dinner. While walking to his place, I thought about how this very act of generosity was what made Ramadhan special.

It was a time to heal and see our connectedness. Hunger leaves everyone slothful, whether you were in the busiest city in America or a sleepy hamlet in Asia.

The scrims might change but the theatre remains the same. While we sat down for a meal of mashed potatoes, green beans and fish, I thanked my friend for making this lovely meal.

“Have a blessed iftar,” he said.

*Abdi Latif Dahir is a freelance journalist currently based in New York.