As I write, it is Ramadan and my neighbors are fasting. One of them gets up early and leaves for work around 5:30 to catch the first metro of the day. The other works late, usually returning home around eight or nine, perfect timing during the month-long fast of Ramadan, which ends this year on August 19th. Each evening, he can participate in the preparation of iftar, the meal marking the end of the daily fast stretching from sunrise to sundown. During that time, Muslims freely give their time to God, practicing the self-restraint encouraged by the Quran.
My neighbors are from Mali, a land-locked country of northwest Africa. They live and work in France so their families can live better in their native land. They do not take month-long vacations nor do they go out very often. They work, share meals, rest, and send money home. Northern Mali has recently been taken over by Taliban affiliated with Al Qaeda, sending thousands of refugees fleeing south. I wonder what it is like to be so far from home in time of war and strife.
My friend Karima is fasting. In less than a week, she is leaving for the United States, where she will begin work as a teaching assistant at the University of Wisconsin. This will be her first extended stay in an English-speaking country. She speaks our language well but has never practiced it on a daily basis. In other words, she has yet to be immersed in American life, where the real business of language learning takes place. Naturally, she is nervous and sometimes afraid, but mostly she is busy, wrapping up one life before she begins another in a new language and land.
After a gray, cool month of July, August in Paris has been hot and muggy. Karima, with dozens of things to do before stepping on her plane, has been hurrying through the hot streets and down into the steamy metro several times a day. I wonder what it is like to face the heat and crowds with stomach empty and throat dry.
In my neighborhood, all around me, people are fasting. At the local outdoor market, is it just my imagination or are veiled Muslim women, pushing baby carriages or pulling shopping carts, truly walking more sluggishly? What about the workmen renovating an apartment in my building? I’ve met the foreman. He is from Tunisia but has lived in France for the past twenty years. Some of his workers are French, others, Tunisian. All are Muslim, working long hours during Ramadan.
On the subject of working and fasting, there has been a controversy this year involving four Muslim camp counsellors. They were laid off for not taking in adequate quantities of fluids and food during work hours, as stipulated in their contract. Located in the Parisian suburbs, the town of Gennevilliers that hired them argued that three years ago, a fasting counsellor was involved in an accident while transporting children. Feeling faint, she lost control of the vehicle. The town did not want to risk similar accidents. The counsellors’ lawyers are arguing that such a requirement to eat and drink is a disguised form of discrimination against Muslims.
As France’s Muslim population grows, surely there will be more conflicts of this type, requiring negotiation and compromise as France’s approximately six million Muslims and the sixty million Frenchmen of other faiths or of none (atheists and agnostics abound) learn to better live and work together.
During Ramadan, I like to descend from my hilltop neighborhood, Buttes Chaumont, to Belleville, the heart of Arab Paris. There, street vendors sell fermented milk and dates, fresh cilantro and mint, special breads and crepes made from semolina, soups, salads and all kinds of cakes. In late afternoon, hours before sunset, crowds jostle each other on the sidewalks and, instead of concentrating on self-restraint, I’d say those around me have a one-track mind, eying mountains of fresh mint or trays of honey cakes, anticipating the first sip of something cool, the first bite of something sweet.
Following the advice of Muslim friends, I do not make my purchases in the street but step inside established shops. My favorite is “Délice de Sfax” (“delight from Sfax,” a city in Tunisia, the name of a pastry shop located at 9, rue Couronne), where Madame Boussa always greets me. She too is fasting while working in the kitchen and in the shop.
During Ramadan, besides cakes, she also prepares special crepes filled with grilled vegetables, a kind of Tunisian quiche called tajine, made with cheese, meat and vegetables, and the traditional chorba, a delicate barley soup. I’ve tried them all and shared them with friends. Unanimously, we find her cooking délicieux.
However, her spécialité is dozens of varieties of cakes made from pistachios, pine nuts, walnuts, almonds or hazelnuts, most of them bite-sized, true works of art to be popped into the mouth. There are also almond-flavored crescents and doughnuts, but if ever you pass by her shop, I would highly recommend the bite-sized cakes made from honey and nuts.
At the beginning of August, I headed south to a friend’s wedding, taking place near Clermont-Ferrand, a city of central France. There I visited the Romanesque basilica Notre Dame du Port, built in the 11th and 12th centuries. It is a beautiful church and its underground crypt is filled with a spiritual presence that mysteriously took hold of me.
Upon leaving the church, I met a woman and began talking with her about the crypt. She had many times experienced that “presence” and often went there to pray. Having struck up a conversation, I decided to ask her if she knew where I could find a branch of my bank. Early that morning, in Paris, I had had a worrisome problem with my bank card. After reflecting, she said to me, “The route is complicated, I’ll take you there.”
Walking through the streets of Clermont-Ferrand, this very attractive woman, the epitome of French elegance, told me a bit about herself. She is Muslim, she was fasting and during Ramadan, she often visited Notre Dame du Port, preferring it to mosques where men and women pray separately. She took me to my bank and then continued on her way, a woman glowing with vitality who, just like in Christ’s “Sermon on the Mount,” did not appear to fast.
When this article goes to press, Ramadan will have already ended, but I hope it is not too late to say “alf mabrouk,” 1,000 congratulations, to Muslim readers who fasted during the holy month of Ramadan.
