Glimpse - Your Stories from Abroad

“Teacher, we have chocolate,” Rim said conspiratorially, sliding the bar of dark Belgian chocolate across her desk toward me. Her demeanor was that of a petitioner offering a bribe, which put me in the role of the corrupt official. Ghita, Rim’s classmate, nodded eagerly, urging me to lay hands on the offering, as if by touch alone I would commit myself to the illicit deed.

Chocolate? I hesitated. We were halfway through Ramadan, the holiest of months in the Islamic calendar, marked by strict prohibitions that include fasting during daylight hours and then eating a (theoretically) light evening meal. There were exceptions, of course; travelers were exempted, as were pregnant women and…

“You have your periods?” I asked, the lightbulb finally clicking on in my brain. The girls nodded enthusiastically. I pushed the chocolate bar back toward Rim. “We can’t eat in front of the others,” I said. “Save it for after class.” Rim slipped the bar into her knapsack as the door opened and Yasmina and Zenab joined the class. By the sour looks on the newcomers faces, I knew that they were still fasting.

The previous week’s English lesson had used the history of chocolate to sugarcoat a particularly difficult grammatical nicety, and I had bemoaned the fact that I couldn’t bring a truffle or two into the class as a ”teaching aid.” I had finally succeeded in endowing chocolate with educative value, and here I was, facing four tired and hungry teenage girls who were fasting from sunrise to sundown.

They were having a tough time since they, like many Moroccans, were staying up late to celebrate fitr, the breaking of the fast. It was normal for the girls to snatch only a few hours of sleep a night.

“Teacher! We’re so weak. So hungry,” went the daily mantra, accompanied by the rolling of exhausted eyes and the half-hearted flailing of flaccid forearms.

“What time did you go to bed last night?”

“Four o’clock.”

“I’m sensing that hunger has little to do with it. Now open your books.”

“Oh teacher! You don’t understand!”

Possibly. This was my first sojourn in an Islamic country during Ramadan. Though I was prepared to deal with a nation of fasting, nicotine-starved Moroccans; clearly, I was mistaken. The rise in collective blood pressures was thunderously palpable as the weeks wore on. Tempers began to flare and voices rose in ever-increasing decibels; cab drivers resorted to fistfights over poached fares and lost parking spots; shopkeepers became, if possible, surlier than ever. Teenagers achieved an even greater degree of lethargy. Bystanders on the streets, witnessing yet another scuffle, would nod at the fray and shrug: “Ramadan.”

For me, the procurement of liquor had suddenly become imperative. “Get your hooch now,” a work colleague had warned us a few weeks prior, “because Ramadan’s starting in a few days.” I had provisioned myself with a few bottles of wine and beer, thinking that would be enough. By the end of Week One, I was desperately seeking the advice of ex-pats on where I could replenish my dwindled supply. I rejoiced to learn that non-Muslims could buy liquor if they convinced a storeowner to open his liquor cache. The next Friday afternoon, two fellow teachers and I walked to our neighborhood grocery store and cornered an employee.

“We need to buy vodka. Please,” we whispered urgently,

“Passports!” he demanded.

Three foreign passports were promptly produced. He thumbed through them with feigned interest and nodded to two young stock boys to unhook the cordon and let us into the basement where the liquor had been stockpiled, a veritable Aladdin’s cave of booze. We scurried about, grabbing the few remaining bottles from the denuded shelves. Afterwards we were escorted upstairs and deposited at the front of the checkout line, much to the audible disapproval of the several dozen women trying to finish their shopping before fitr. I briefly considered offering them a sheepish smile with a what-can-you-do shrug, but decided against it. Instead, as I watched bottle after bottle of Belgian beer pass under the checkout scanner, I regretted not buying a bag of potato chips.

As we left the store, one of the teachers said, “I feel dirty.”

I nodded. “We’re not doing that again.”

I admired those who fasted. Or rather, those who truly fasted. It became increasingly difficult for me to sympathize with those who denied themselves food for a dozen or so hours, only to gorge themselves unconscious on sweets and savories at night. In my mind, the post-fast immoderation undermined the validity of the argument that Ramadan purifies the system. I knew of no nutritionist who would advocate a regime of alternating feast and famine—or rather, famine and feast—over a 30-some day period.

With doubts that sending my metabolism haywire would please anyone’s god, I preferred instead to contemplate Ramadan’s emphasis on strengthening familial bonds, seeking a deeper communion with one’s maker, and finding greater empathy for those less fortunate. Such benefits made the more contradictory aspects of the month bearable for me.

“Teacher …” Rim’s voice jarred me from my reverie and I realized that class was over. Only she and Ghita remained. As I put away my books, my eyes caught a flash of the gold foil as she again pushed the chocolate bar in my direction. The girls knew that I could still indulge in chocolate during Ramadan, but I was nonetheless touched by the invitation to join their menstrual clique. I snapped off a piece and popped it into my mouth. My mouth ached with the immediacy of the sugar fix.

“Hazelnut,” I said, and nodded approvingly.