TRAVEL | CELEBRATION | RAMADAN
Celebrating the Strangest Ramadan In Morocco
Not your typical Ramadan!
In 2020, like much of the rest of the world, we found ourselves locked down. We weren’t, however, locked down in a place of familiarity, like our hometown or country, we were locked down in Morocco.
We didn’t mind, really. Despite that I went through a period of intense fear about what the virus was going to bring to the world and wondered if I would ever see my family again, Morocco was a very good place to be.
If you want to read about how we learned of the virus, and what was happening in the country, the below article will fill in the details. Let’s just say we were pretty clueless about all of it as we weren’t watching the news or reading newspapers.
It really side-swiped us and caught us off guard.
We arrived at a hostel in Tinghir, in the center of the country, just days before the roads and highways were closed and the border was shut tight. We had gone there to paint one mural, but after being locked down for 2.5 months in the same place, we ended up painting almost every wall surface in the place.
Our art was our medicine that got us through those trying days.
Thankfully the owner was doing a few renovations and had removed the hostel from booking sights at that time. This meant that there were no other travelers that were trapped in there with us. It was just us and the owner.
Despite being told that we were not allowed to leave our accommodation for any reason, our host took us to a neighbor's house one day for a small BBQ. There we were speaking to a man that spoke very good English. We chatted about the state of the world and all the crazy things that were happening. He had been outside of Morocco, so had a bit of a worldly view in comparison to others.
We spoke about how Morocco was a pretty good place to be through all of this and how thrilled we were that Moroccans are so good at taking care of their fellow human beings. At that point, we had been very well cared for by our host and he cooked us amazing meals most days.
We also felt very safe in Morocco at all times.
“We have our Ramadan coming up in a couple of weeks.” He said.
“Yes, we know. We are looking forward to it.” I told him.
“Will you fast?” He asked.
“Yes, I don’t see why not,” I replied without hesitation.
Chris and I had already spoken of this together and we had full intentions of doing whatever it was that our host was doing. But I guess we hadn’t communicated that to our host yet, and he was surprised.
His eyes widened from the other side of the room, “You are?”
“Yes, we want to experience your culture,” I told him.
He shook his head in disbelief. I could see the wheels turning in his head ‘we will see,’ I swear I heard his thought.
He was a bit of an interesting character. Over our time staying with him we would see his true colors come out, and they weren’t all nice happy colors. He had a drinking problem, for one. Quite often he would leave the hostel at around 11:00 pm, despite there being a strict curfew, and would galavant around until after 1:00. Some mornings I would tell him that he left and he wouldn’t even remember doing so. I was convinced that he would get arrested at some point. First of all, he was out after curfew, second of all he was drunk.
Alcohol is strictly forbidden in Morocco, though much goes on behind closed doors, so we were told, and we witnessed.
He told us that he needed to quit drinking and that it had ruined much of his life, but he just couldn’t. We tried to coach him through it all but he was a troubled soul. One thing we were looking forward to with Ramadan was that he wouldn't be drinking for those 29 days. At least things would be a little more predictable.
For those that aren’t familiar, fasting during Ramadan is from sun up to sun down. It goes for 29 days, and every year the dates are advanced 2 weeks. This year it was from April 23 — May23.
The night before Ramadan was to start, or actually, the evening before the first supper, which was scheduled for about 2:00 am, I started asking our host questions.
“So what does fasting really mean? What are we allowed and not allowed?” I hadn’t researched any of this, we were truly just rolling with it.
“You can’t drink, eat or smoke anything. No sex either.” He said.
“But we can drink water, right?” I asked hopefully.
“No, no water, no nothing. Nothing should be taken into your body.” He clarified.
Well, I will admit that had me freaked out a bit.
No water??? How would I survive the day with no water?
Still not knowing exactly how this worked and when it started, I tried to go to bed at midnight that night.
“But wait, you have to stay up for the first meal.” He said.
I didn’t realize that it started that way. “Oh, okay, sure.” As I said, we were truly rolling with it. Our hose was not a great communicator so we would basically just do what we were told moment by moment.
I wrote a blog post about our experience of Ramadan shortly after it was complete, which you can read here, and I have decided to use parts of that to accurately share our experience at the time.
Chris and I have just completed the 29 days of Ramadan here in Morocco. We took part in the fasting tradition of the celebration. We ate our last meal, called ‘supper’ between 2:00am and 3:00am, went to bed around 4:00am, then fasted until sunset each day.
We didn’t mentally prep ourselves for this experience, we simply let it happen. We didn’t question whether or not we could do it, we just did it. We rested in the knowing that millions of people, in fact, billions of people, have done this before. We rested in knowing that we probably could as well.
It really wasn’t even that difficult. The first couple days took a bit of focused effort to not do those knee jerk things that we always do, like grab for the water bottle multiple times during the day.
As stated, we really didn’t find it that difficult. For the first couple of days, I told myself that I was thirsty and was frustrated that I couldn’t just drink some water, but that eased off after a few days.
Ramadan is also meant to be a time where people treat each other with kindness and don’t say bad words about, or to, each other. Unfortunately, we weren’t told this part and on many days our hunger would get the best of us as we neared sunset and the breaking of the fast in the evening. We broke out into a few stupid arguments through this, which I’m sure our host was not pleased with. However, I also attribute some of that to having cabin fever. Remember, we were also in a strict lockdown, and we were not supposed to leave the house for any reason.
(Not too mention that it was during Covid and the world was a strange and uncertain place in those days.)
In fact, our host had to get a permission slip from the government stating that he was the one responsible for the household so that he could purchase food. It was surely an interesting time and one that challenged our emotions in many different ways.
We learned a lot about ourselves in those days. Mostly we learned how resilient human beings are, and when we put our mind to something, we can accomplish anything.
By taking part in such a ritualistic tradition, we have found exponential growth. We had no idea what we were getting into. We didn’t know how it was going to feel while we were doing it, and we didn’t know how it was going to feel when we were finished. But by submitting ourselves to the experience, we have rearranged the way we think, we have blasted beliefs that we once held, and we have proven to ourselves what is possible.
One of the biggest things that we took away from fasting for Ramadan was that we can actually last a whole day without eating, and we won’t die. It sounds like a ridiculous thing to say, but growing up as we did, in a culture where we eat every 4 hours or so, means that we were conditioned to think that we constantly needed food.
The interesting part of this was that the body adjusted. After the first 3 or 4 days, the hunger pangs relented and the body created a new time schedule. That’s not so say that we weren’t hungry when sunset rolled around!
This is the sort of travel that we do. This is the deep dive that we are doing into other cultures’ ways of doing things. We love to challenge our beliefs and open our minds up to new and different ways. We like to create the space in our lives to change our habits, and to tweak how it is that we currently do things. As we experience different cultures and places, we find ourselves constantly learning and growing. If we see a group of people with a better way of doing something, then we adopt that practice. As we go, we fine tune how we are living our lives, and it just keeps getting better and better.
Of course, the social aspect of Ramadan didn’t exist these days, so this was not your typical Ramadan. Normally, huge families get together for the breaking of the fast and the whole month is a time of gathering and celebration. In 2020, the streets were barren and a 6:00 pm curfew sent everyone indoors and away from contacting each other.
I’m sure that this will go down in history as the strangest Ramadan ever!
More and more it feels clearer that we are walking our path to demonstrate that there is so much to experience in this life. We are walking this path to experience the variety that is out there in the world. We are walking this path to help ourselves to better understand humanity, and what makes all of us tick. We are walking this path to show others that if we put up walls of false beliefs around ourselves, then we are missing out.
When these walls of false beliefs are built up around us, we are missing out on so much that is enlightening and exhilarating. We are missing out on a life that could possibly be better than the one that we are currently living. We are missing out on enriching our lives with experiences. Most of all, we are missing out on providing ourselves with the best life experience that could ever be possible.
When it was all said and done, we were told by many people that they were proud of us for accomplishing this. In fact, it was in hearing this from others, that we then became proud of ourselves. We realized that it really was a pretty huge accomplishment and that many from the ‘western world’ will likely never understand an experience such as this.
Our host also told us that we are strong.
Ramadan now does feel like and accomplishment. While we were doing it, we didn’t think much of it. We were so wrapped up in ourselves and what ever was going on. We didn’t count down the days. We didn’t wish that it was over. We just did it. We put one step in front of the other, took on what each day provided to us, and moved forward into the next one.
One year later, we found ourselves renting an apartment in Port Sudan, Sudan during Ramadan. Ramadan was coming and we could see what a festivity it was going to be.
We contemplated fasting but decided against it in the end. However, our bodies naturally adjusted to the schedule of the others that were celebrating, and without even trying, we started going to bed around 4:00 am as well, and found ourselves out in the street at 10:00 pm drinking coffee with some of the locals.
It was nice to see the celebration in the way that it was supposed to happen. Friends and family gathering and coming together to celebrate the important holiday. I’m sure some even celebrated extra hard, simply in happiness that they could gather again.
It’s interesting to think back to this Ramadan celebration. It is such an iconic event, yet that year it likely had such a strange feel to it for many. We do hope that one day we are in a place again where we can have the full Ramadan experience in the way that it is meant to be.
Thanks so much for reading about our profound experience. It truly did shift our perspective of ourselves and made us feel resilient and strong. Yes, our host was right after all. I can clearly see now how strong we were.
Happy Travels!
xo Jill
This post is a response to Globetrotters July challenge “Celebrations Around The World.”
Thank you to Adrienne Beaumont 🇦🇺| JoAnn Ryan | Gerald Sturgill | Anne Bonfert | and Crystal A. Walker for working so hard to keep the publication alive with these fun and engaging prompts!
To read more celebration posts from fellow globetrotters:
My other submissions to the prompt:
Hi there, we are 2 Canadians, Jill and Chris from Artistic Voyages. We have been nomadic since 2017 living in numerous different countries, and experiencing the life and diversity of our planet on the ground and firsthand. We paint FREE murals in exchange for accommodation. Check us out on Ko-fi!
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