Overwhelming hunger and the Idd festivities

The end of Ramadan is a time of great celebration and...can you guess? Eating! It is a painful experience, however, to await the cannons signifying end of Ramadan on Thursday night and to realize, in the end, the sheer futility of the hours you've been straining your ears. Since Idd (which is Eid spelled the Swahili way) only comes when the new moon has been spotted, it can happen either of two nights. In the US, Somalia and most of the Middle East Idd was on Friday. In Tanzania, Ethiopia and Kenya, the moon failed to appear. So...it was another day of sitting through lectures while fasting, and another day of horrendous deficits of attention (it is during lectures that I miss cheese and bagels and chinese food and mexican food and sushi the most. Accordingly, I don't listen too well.).
Friday afternoon was the hardest to fast through. My mouth was dry and all I could do was slouch on the couch in a comatose manner, barely speaking to my family. To make matters worse, Jamie Oliver is apparently pretty popular in the Middle East, and the Dubai TV station we watch plays his cooking show at 5:00 on weekdays. We break fast at around 6:15. It is bad, bad planning and after watching it I feel even more unhinged by hunger and thirst. "So much cholesterol," remarks my host mother, Sharifa, every time Jamie Oliver uses cheese in his dishes. Sometimes I just want to fall off the couch when she says this. I can't think of a meal I've eaten since I've been here that did not contain at least one fried thing. Most of the time oil makes up roughly half of the food mass laid out on any given table. And vegetables? Rare. And usually swimming in Blue Band, the margarine they use here.
As soon as the call to prayer started, the cannons at Fort Jesus rang out across the city. In the clearing in front of the house, children danced. Someone cranked up a boom box and played music loudly. It continued all night. For the first time in a month I ate normally, with no thought of storing enough caloric energy to get me through the next day.
Halfway through the next meal, my mom looked up from her shurba (chicken stew) "Tomorrow is Idd and we will eat. Then we will fast for the next six days."
I barely managed to keep my mouth closed; my lower jaw wanted so badly to hit the table, and maybe even the floor. Sharifa said that it would be fine if I wanted Shabani (the servant) to make breakfast and lunch for me. I didn't have to fast. But after some thought about how awkward that would be, I said I'd fast with them. So...I'm really looking forward to tomorrow. I'll have to relearn normal eating patterns.

Friday night, apart from being the last night of Ramadan, was also my sister's 21st birthday. We call her Fatma Shorty because she is very short. My cousin, who lives with us, is Fatma Tall. She is 15 but seems much older. Although they don't really celebrate birthdays here, she wanted to buy a new headscarf and some cosmetics for herself, so that evening we headed to the center of Old Town. During Ramadan, since people are cooking, working or sleeping all day, shops stay open far into the night and everyone wanders around socializing and buying clothes. It was the last night of Ramadan, so it was much like last minute Christmas shopping. All the people who hadn't gotten Idd clothes for their kids yet were crowded into the narrow streets, threading their way between street vendors and cars trying in vain to move forward.
I was with Fatma Short, Fatma Tall and their friend, Fatma. All three wore black buibuis and headscarves, and although each one had a different sparkly design on it, they were incredibly hard to follow. Fatma Short and Fatma the friend were wearing ninjas; when I asked about it they told me not to tell Sharifa. "Girls wear ninjas to go on secret dates," they told me. "We're not allowed to wear them out." And indeed, they got a lot of attention on the streets; hiding everything but your eyes if you are a teen is apparently a very flirty move.
While we were out, I bought a shirt for 450 shillings; the shopkeeper tried to charge me 600 but I said no and the Fatmas shouted "450! 450!" at him until he gave in. "Yeye ni ndugu yetu!" they shouted at him (she's our sibling!). Then I treated them all to ice cream for Fatma's birthday, with the added bonus that Fatma Tall and I got to watch the other two struggle to eat popsicles under their ninjas. It was pretty funny.
When we got home, the Fatmas had me try on a succession of outfits until I found one I could wear for Idd. Fatma Tall straightened my hair and I put Vaseline all over my arms and hands so that the henna I'd gotten earlier in the evening would darken overnight. After settling on an outfit, we girl-talked for a while and Fatma Shorty laughed at me. She couldn't believe I'd never had a boyfriend; she's had 4, but don't tell her mother. All except the most recent are secrets. The most recent, who is from Tanzania but works in Holland right now, has promised to come within the month and ask for her hand in marriage. She chats with him on MSN on her phone all day and they call each other at least once a day. My mother has invited me to the wedding, which they hope will be next July or August. I said I'd try to make it.
The next morning after breakfast, Fatma Tall put my hair up, lined my eyes with kohl and gave me lip gloss to wear. A succession of kids dressed in their shiny new Idd clothes and toting shiny new handbags marched through the house to Sharifa, seated on the couch in the living room. She gave them small change and they sat down and talked for a while, eating the snack pastries on the table and drinking juice. Then they moved on to visit the next relatives. I went next door and sat with my aunt and uncle and Thano, who is another student from our group and who is now my cousin, since they are his host parents. After a while Fatma Tall and Salma, her 13-year-old sister, took me around to meet all the relatives.
Over the course of the day, I met about 1000 relatives, drank more juice than I've ever drunk in my life and ate cake until I was on the verge of exploding. I also made 350 shillings, which the Fatmas laughed at me for. Little kids get money on Idd; people my age are mainly expected to stay home and greet visitors.
And what, you may ask, do the little kids do with all the loose change they end up with? The answer lies in the sketchy park on Makadara road. They fence it off and bring in rides and camels and horses and sound systems for a week. It's the Makadara fair, and during Idd it's the place to see and be seen. Salma and I were about to go to Makadara that evening ("hold onto your bag tightly," my mom told me.) when Sharifa's cell phone rang. "It's for you," she said, handing the phone to me. Thano and our cousin Ali were on the other end, wondering if I wanted to drive around Mombasa in a rented car for a few hours.
It turned out to be a bizarre night. Ali turned up the bass and blasted a variety of American and Swahili hip-hop mix cds, and we cruised through town past all the festivities. Makadara was crowded and screams and loud horns emerged from inside; the ice cream shops along the road were brightly lit and full and it took forever to get down one street with all the cars and people trying to move around. We ended up at an On-The-Run at a gas station outside of the city (you don't know how bizarre it is seeing an American chain gas station store like that here) and bought hot dogs, then ate them on the beach in Nyali. Then we drove around for a couple of hours, just seeing the city at night.
This entry is longer than it was supposed to be, and I managed to fit in about a third of what I wanted to talk about. My lunch break is almost over now and I have to go back for the third lecture of the day. Hopefully soon I will be able to write again, and when I do I need to write about:
Finally getting to Makadara
Weddings
My Swahili name
and various other things. But now I have to ford through rivers of rainwater mixed with various unappetizing things on my way back; the small rains season has officially started and I'm considering buying a canoe to ease transportation for the next two weeks.