The Holiday Season

One of the things I will miss most about Tanzania is the call to prayer. One of my first memories of homestay in Korogwe is practically sprinting out of bed at 5:30 am as a result of the neighboring mosque blasting quranic recitations. Even my village, which is entirely off the power grid, manages to broadcast every call via an old school PA system (imagine the air raid sirens from a Cold War propaganda film and you have the right idea). Now, I mostly sleep through the morning call. 

It’s a glorious thing to hear the call to prayer in Dar Es Salaam at sunset. There you are, sitting on a balcony, chatting about the inexhaustible topics of one’s youth and future while families play on their roofs and the silhouettes of evening’s first bats flash across the sky. Out of the labyrinthine city the first call to prayer rises, only to be joined by the staggered emergence of its fellows, the melodic Arabic swelling together before slipping back into the city’s unending sounds. It may be one of the few moments that can make a twenty-something stop thinking about himself.

Calls to prayer only get more frequent and earnest during the month of Ramadan, which carries a strange significance for me; it marks my first whole year in country. I’ll try not to dwell on an arbitrary milestone too much but I will say that, while the first year went so fast, the next fifteen months appear particularly gargantuan. Truthfully, I’m scared shitless. Like many things in my service, I can’t seem to resolve two conflicting feelings; at once, I feel like I’ve done nothing meaningful over the last year, so now I have to really kick it into gear, yet there’s so much time I shouldn’t sweat it. Truthfully: shitless.

Back to Ramadan, I love getting the feel of another religion and the ebb and flow of their lives. You start to notice things like how, although not as religious as it once was, America’s calendar revolves entirely around Christian holy days. The Islam I’m being exposed to is on such a local and independent scale, I also get to learn about the faith while avoiding all the institutional and political manipulations that taint all major religions. In a world of spreading violent, political Islamist groups, like Al-Shabab and Boka Haram in neighboring Kenya and Uganda, respectively, this opportunity strikes me as invaluable.

On a personal level, when I talk to people about their faith I enjoy get to peek through a little window to what they most value. Recently, the conclusion of Ramadan has granted me many opportunities to have this discussion. The end of Ramadan is a major Muslim holy day, called Eid Al-Fitr, which follows the siting of a new moon; part of the anticipation leading up to the holiday is that no-one knows when exactly it will be, so we all watch the night sky, hoping to catch a glimpse of the full moon.

The person I most enjoy talking to about Islam, and any subject in general, with is my babu. To him, Eid (as in need) is about charity and respecting all people as human beings; it’s a time to feed the poor, cast aside avarice (uchoyo), and recognize our shared humanity. After discussing the local customs of Id and his feelings on the holiday season, the sun set and I was invited inside their roofless, door-less home to sit with the family on their mkeka (a reed mat) and break the fast. Although everyone in my village knows I don’t fasting, I was a little tentative to take food from people who were eating their first meal of the day. After the meal, my babu turned to me and said, “There is nothing better than eating this meal with a non-muslim who is not fasting. Alhamdulilah.”

I have been affected by many things in my Peace Corps service and few things have struck me as much as my neighbors’ kindness and generosity, even in the face of destitution and poverty.  If I bring only one thing back to America, I hope it’s some shadow of the selflessness I’ve come to know in Kiuta. In America, a society of competition, isolation, and self-reliance, this lesson is particularly pertinent: never are we more humble and connected than when we are giving away ourselves.

P.S. Few things are more unsettling than being taken to a locked shead to look at a mystery animal. Apparently Sungura is rabit.