Farook Returns from Umrah

Most Ramadans, Farook takes a week or so early in Ramadan for an Umrah, so I don't see him that first week.

This year, however, Farook was gone for a month, leaving a few days before Ramadan started and coming back the end of the third week of Ramadan. This may be something described by Thessinger in his book, Arabian Sands. Thessinger said that the Arabs he knew always travelled during Ramadan when it came in the summer, because, if one is travelling, one can postpone the Ramadan fast until later, say winter when fasting is much easier.

My very first Ramdan in the UAE, the place where I worked wanted us to learn all about Ramadan and arranged a special iftar with a speaker who would explain the true meaning of Ramadan. This was set up on the first weekend of Ramadan, maybe the third or fourth night. We arrived at the tent, and I followed as everyone filled at least three plates from the open buffet. Then everyone sat staring at the food until the adhan announced that it was officially sunset, and we all began eating. After about half an hour, someone got up on the speaker's platform to read a message from the speaker: that Ramadan is about family, so the speaker was having iftar with his own family, and would not be coming out to speak.

After Ramadan starts, I never see Farook for about a week, for the first week of Ramadan is about sharing iftar and sohour with the extended family. But after that first week, it is time to iftar and sohour with friends, and Farook always insists we have a few iftars together.

I assume, by now, everyone knows that iftar is the meal Muslims take at sunset during Ramadan, the first bit of food and drink since 90 minutes before sunrise. Sohour is the final meal before fasting begins, usually served about two and a half or three hours before sunrise.

Now that he's back, as he has every year since I first met him, Farook invited me to his friend's sohour tent. He takes me once or twice every Ramadan. Every midnight during Ramadan, Farook's friend serves eight goats, all prepared in slightly different ways, to a couple of dozen men who show up. Usually, two goats are on white rice with carrots, two are on a brownish rice with hard boiled eggs, two are on rice with turnips, and two are stuffed with nuts and covered with Arabic bread. The meal also includes some of the beans called foul, some sweets, and the  Ramadan dish called harees, a paste made from wheat and goat. All the goat gets eaten, but the rice and veggies and sweets get left behind.

Farook used to insist on going at 9 pm to visit with the host and to show that we were there for more than just the free goat, but now we go around 11 pm. Most of the guests show up around 11:30 pm to 11:45. Beginning around 9 pm, the host serves Arabic coffee and several kinds of tea: sweetened without milk, sweetened with milk, fenugreek tea and cinnamon tea.

Over the years, I've learned that I quite like goat, which surprised me since I detest mutton, but young goat is a very mild flavoured meat, quite unlike the strong, elderly mutton that is common here, prepared from the ewes who have had the 'change of life' and can no longer produce milk.

So now I've made my annual trip to the sohour tent, with only a few days of Ramadan to spare.

Eid is expected to be this coming Sunday.

I still haven't had an iftar with Farook this year, but we've still got a few days left, so I'm hoping we can manage one iftar, inshallah.