Happy Ramadan

Note to reader(s):

I use A LOT of capitalization in this post for emphasis.
Please do dwell on the capitalized words and say them loudly in your mind to improve flow, clarify meaning, and emphasize incredulity.

Ramadan started this week and I told my friend and labmate Assie that I would fast with her on the first and last day of the month-long festivus in solidarity and support of her suffering since SHE was fasting all day long every day for a month in solidarity and support of millions of people who suffer worldwide. It seemed like the least I could do, right?

I am not sure why exactly... perhaps it was the fact that I had agreed to fast in the first place, but Monday morning I woke up ravenous. I am not a breakfast eater, but my stomach was audibly growling as I laid in bed already trying to remember why I had agreed to do this. Then I went to work. Those of you who know me in a lab setting know that last year I bought a little, miraculous coffee maker (one of the pod-based coffee makers) in an effort to cultivate a caffeine addiction while writing my dissertation. It worked wonders for my productivity-- given that I woke up at home in my bed and the coffee maker was in my lab. After a very short time, my morning routine was shaved down to the 20 minutes it took me to get up, get dressed, scoot to school, and put the pod in the machine. 26 seconds later, I would have a frothy, delicious little cup of joy in my newbie hands. Nowadays I am patently hooked on my 4 ounce miracle each morning and it is the first thing I do to get going when I arrive at school. Monday was no different, although I soon found out that, technically, drinking coffee (or even water!) counts as breaking the fast. "REALLY?" I asked in feigned disbelief. Really, I was told. I was informed of this while chewing gum (which I was doing with unusual gusto because I was SO hungry), which I came to find out is ALSO a fast-breaking activity. Something about the flavor crystals going down your throat in your saliva…. So, it turns out, I am a terrible empathetic faster. Now I have decided that I am going to show my support for Assie by providing a pathetic example of fasting-- trying each day and failing-- in order to make her feel really good about how awesome a faster she is. I don't know why I didn't think of this strategy in the first place.

My previous experience with Ramadan was during time spent on the very Islamic coast of East Africa, where I was working a few years ago in the fall of 2006. One day, I was walking around with my erstwhile boyfriend (and current dear friend) Chris Moore in Stone Town—the main hub of the island of Zanzibar—digesting a delicious dinner from The Gardens (the nightly street food galleria that springs up in the park along the waterfront serving up the most delicious fresh-caught seafood you have ever tasted for a fraction of the price you have ever paid—unless you get snookered that is….) We knew I had the day off the next day and were lala-ing about, pressing our noses in the window of a restaurant dedicated to all things Freddy Mercury (he was born in Zanzibar and is something of a local hero; the restaurant was, of course, closed for Ramadan), and brainstorming about what to do the next day. We passed a storefront that claimed to rent any type of motorized vehicle and Chris suggested we rent scooters since a) I love scooters and b) the island is so small you can see it in its entirety via a two-stroke engine. As per usual in Tanzania, there was a guy who happened to be standing outside the storefront who assured us his friend owned the place, and that someone would be there to meet us at 8 am the next morning and hook us up with some vehicles. As per usual, the next morning there WAS someone there, 2 guys actually, totally unaffiliated with THIS particular scooter rental place, ready to take us on dirtbikes at high speed through the winding, narrow streets of Stone Town to THEIR place, where they also had a few scooters that could be rented out. Let me describe these guys briefly, because we ended up spending quite a bit of time with our lives in their hands. One was very, very tall and one was very, very short and they both had very, very greasy hair and wore a lot of jewelry. When we selected the scooters we wanted, they asked us for our Tanzanian motorcycle driver’s licenses to fill out the paperwork for the rental. For some reason, they were SHOCKED we did not have any, and acted as if the deal was definitely going to fall through. This seemed like kind of a surprise to me because a) I am an indefatigable optimist and b) I am pretty sure EVERYONE who rents a scooter in Zanzibar does not possess a Tanzanian driver’s license with a motorcycle endorsement. I gently suggested that maybe there was a way around this problem, and they agreed that we could go to the Zanzinbari-equivalent of the DMV and GET Tanzanian driver’s licenses. However, this would require a) going to the DMV (which is a time-consuming activity in every country), b) having our US driver’s licenses with us (which we did not have), and therefore c) procuring fake foreign driver’s licenses to use to get only somewhat real Zanzibari licenses, and finally, d) taking a driving test on the scooter. And so we did! Procuring the fake licenses was going to take a little while, so we were led to a courtyard to wait with the short, greasy guy while the tall, greasy guy went searching wherever one searches for these things. The short greasy guy was drinking strong coffee and smoking non-stop. Because I knew even less about Ramadan then than I do now, I asked him, “So, trying to survive the fast, huh?”—assuming, of course, that mainlining coffee and chain-smoking was a survival strategy for hunger.
“WHAT?!?” he exclaimed. “I don’t fast during Ramadan! If you fast, you can’t drink and smoke!!!”
Oh, I see. So it is not the STARVING that bothers you, it is not being able to drink and smoke cigarettes. Got it.
Eventually, the tall greasy guy came back with the licenses which, as I mentioned, need to have motorcycle endorsements (mine did, Chris’ didn’t) in order to take the test and get the permits and, preferably, should bear SOME resemblance to the person intending to get away with using them (I am pretty sure Zanzibaris think all light-skinned people look the same, so this was probably okay. ) Then we each rode with one of the greasy guys on the scooters to a park in the middle of town so we could practice before taking the test. These scooters had gears like motorcycles, Chris wasn’t nearly as experienced a scooter driver as I was, and there is a serious paucity of stoplights and lane dividers on the roads in Zanzibar so it was important just to get used to weaving in and out of chaotic traffic. Ironically, on our WAY back from the park to the DMV, we got stopped by the cops (we were not driving at this point, we were each still clutching uncomfortably tightly to our respective greasy guys). Turns out, THEIR licenses were expired. The cop took them and told them to come back later that night with “tea money” (=a bribe) and they could get them back. So now we are four people, two scooters, and zero licenses. On our way to the Zanzibari DMV.

We get there, wait the requisite amount of time (this is a prescribed amount, in accordance with a secret universal proclamation followed by DMV paper pushers worldwide), take the driving test, lie to the officials about our fake IDs, insist that the motorcycle endorsement is embedded in the numeric codes somewhere on the back, and leave with one license to ill in hand (mine, Chris was out of luck). The tall greasy guy assured us this was no problem and that, for a small price, he could just forge a license. The price was so small, in fact, I had to wonder why we didn't just go this route in the first place! After a few more stops and some waiting in lobbies of various buildings, we head BACK to the house with the courtyard deep in the back alleys of Stone Town to get our scooters and get going. It is now about noon. After four hours of mishaps, mayhem, waiting, lying, fake IDs, getting hassled by cops, driving lessons, holding on for dear life, careening through narrow alleys all over town, discussing the cons of Ramadan, and convincing everyone involved that this was, in fact, a good idea despite the apparent obstacles and illegalities—the tall greasy guy handed us some really dorky looking helmets and the keys to the scooters. At last! As we turned on the ignition and started to roll them backwards to head out onto the street, he yelled in kind of a panic—“WAIT! Wait! Stop!!!”

We turned off the ignition.

“Yeah?” I said, wondering what else there could POSSIBLY be.

He said, “DON'T FORGET!!!! You have to drive on the LEFT here!!”

I nearly died laughing. After 5 trips to East Africa, 3 months in-country on this particular trip, having covered thousands and thousands of miles by car, having DRIVEN numerous times, and (ESPECIALLY) having just spent the last 4 hours trying to rent these scooters, did he REALLY think we had somehow managed to miss the whole driving on the left thing? Needless to say, scooting is a great way to see Zanzibar (and the rest of the world I would propose) and the morning's saga only primed us for the day's adventure.

We hit the road.