Ramadan-o-rama

Outside I can hear the honking of horns, and the street below is a parking lot. All the schools and businesses quit early during Ramadan, and everybody heads home at the same time. My school beats the traffic by letting us go a half hour earlier than everyone else. We have a new driver. He's an old Syrian guy with a leathery face and bristly beard. He looks like a National Geographic picture, a little scary. The first day he was silent. I imagined him reciting the surras in his head and trying not to make eye contact with us infidels. But he was just shy. Since then he's softened up, and he's so gentle and respectful, it makes me ashamed of my first impressions. This morning he showed me a picture of an American teacher he met when he was working in Cairo. He carries the guy's picture around in his wallet.

Ramadan is different this year. I guess I've changed. Some Arabic staff got word that I was upset about the mosque noise. They all started asking me if the mosque noise was disturbing my rest too much. By the time they got around to asking, I had already softened on the issue and I didn't want to hurt anybody's feelings, but I admitted that sometimes it woke me up and I couldn't get back to sleep. One of the teachers said that he was going to call the Ministry of Religion and tell them about it. Well, apparently it worked. For the past week, the call to prayer hardly wakes me up. Not only is the volume turned down, but the vocalization is softer. Sometimes it even gives me the idea to pray. Imagine that. All my Muslim friends are fasting right now, and sometimes I can see the exhaustion in their faces. Islam requires a dry fast -- no water. It must be so hard to go without water all day when it's hot. I made up my mind that I would do something in solidarity with my Muslim friends, so I committed to a vegetarian diet for the month. I also threw away the half pack of cheap Egyptian cigarettes that I bought. It would be good to quit meat and tobacco permanently, but we'll see how the month goes.

I heard last night that Kuwait is experiencing the highest humidity that they've had in ten years. Last week it felt like a steam bath outside. As soon as I stepped out the door my eyeglasses would fog up immediately. It was strange. It's starting to subside a little. The combined heat and humidity does tend to keep people indoors. Usually I will walk a couple blocks to a small basement grocery store to pick up an item or two, milk or whatever. I'm using up everything I have to avoid going anywhere. Strange dinners of macaroni with cashew nuts and ketchup. The school provides a shopping a bus once a week, and tomorrow is shopping day again. I mustn't make the mistake I made last time -- the heat put me in a frame of mind to buy liquids. I bought NA beer, fruit juice, water, milk, etc... hardly any solid food. Of course five liters of the fruit juice were for a special project. By the way, we've learned that you have to use real fruit juice. I already knew that myself, but a good friend confirmed that artificially flavored sweetened drinks will not ferment. He was basically trying to make wine out of Kool-Aid.

When I got back to Kuwait, I sent an email to the Vicariate of Kuwait Catholic church to ask about volunteering. I got an answer back from the bishop, who invited me to come and meet him. I met him. He's an Italian. He talks just like Marlon Brando in the Godfather. We talked about the fact that westerners don't come to mass much in Kuwait. Apparently, those who go at all go to a small mass said by the military chaplain at the American Embassy. He seemed very tired. He's been serving in Arab countries for about 40 years. He invited me to attend a three-day "Unity Congress" about unifying the Church in Kuwait. It was this past weekend, and I went all three days. I got to see another side of the Indian and Filipino Catholics whom I described before as having sad and angry faces. At times they can be very focused on reverence and solemnity, but I also saw them clapping, flapping angel wings, and singing their hearts out when they were prompted to do so. It was funny, cute, and humbling.

The official emphasis was on bringing together the different ethnic communities and Rites which tend to stick to themselves too much. In small groups, I tried to extend the definition of Church. The Indians and Filipinos in my discussion group were hard pressed to think of non-Catholic Christians as their brothers and sisters, because they've experienced too much painful division and separation. Unfortunately, the local evangelical Bible church see the Catholics as prime targets for their missions. Families are split up over this. It has been going on for generations, I know. My grandmother had two brothers who became "Assembly of God" fundamentalists, and the rift in the family was never healed. Attacks on Catholic tradition can sometimes get a little sharp. The traditional Catholics that come here from India and the Philippines have a strong devotion to the Virgin Mary, and this is often made a point of attack for the non-Catholics, who call it idolatry and say that Mary was just an "eggshell." (It almost sounds funny -- eggshell! Do they think that Jesus of Nazareth hatched from an egg?!)

People's cell phones kept going off all weekend in the middle of everything. Lectures, panel discussions, prayers, the consecration of the Eucharist -- doesn't matter -- you would hear somebody's cell phone go off with some crazy variety of ringtone; once it was Bobby McFerrin's famous whistling bit from "Don't Worry Be Happy." In hindsight, that was kind of prophetic. I was getting annoyed, though, and thought, "Can't these people get a CLUE and turn off their cell phones?!" Then on the last morning, a cell phone rang in the middle of the Bishop's address. I saw him look down and I thought he was going to really scold us. But he fumbled in the pocket of his cassock and said, "Oh, I fogetta to turna offa my mobile."

After such a busy weekend, I'm glad to have some stay-home time tonight. I might go down and give some food and water to the cats that live outside the lobby door. There used to be just one, an orange tabby. A brown and gray one has figured out that somebody is putting food out, and now he's taken up residence there as well. They're both starved to skin and bones, and they cry at everyone who uses that side door. Poor little critters. Other than feeding them, I'm just going to play some music, do some feng-shui (that's a fancy word for tidying up) around the apartment, and take a glance at my lesson plans. Maybe I'll play my Arabic Groove CD.

Maasalama