Ruining Ramadan in Egypt
Lee on Sep 09 2008 at 4:04 pm | Filed under: Culture, Foreign affairs, Lee's Page, Religion and theology, Travel
Ramadan always means new soap operas in the Arab world. I learned today it also means not even thinking about masturbation. A small thing to you perhaps, but in a repressive sexual society where the curves of the female figure are a matter of imaginative mystery, this is a serious lifestyle sacrifice for young men.
For me, Ramadan always means sharing a cigarette on a dirty floorboard outside Cairo. I’d offered my driver my last smoke in the midst of the holy month when he’d picked me up from a camel train. I’d held it out with an appeal that God was after all merciful. Tobacco is haram, forbidden, during the daylight hours of Ramadan. He’d stared at it for a long time. ‘Western devils and their temptations’ might have been in his thoughts. Finally he said “Yes. But not here.”
It felt like we drove halfway to Helwan to find a hidden stretch of road. Even then, such was the fear of being seen violating the religious injunctions of the month that we were reduced to hiding below the dashboard on the floor of the car, swatting away the smoke to hide our signature of sin. It was a memorable smoke to say the least.
Anyone who has traveled in North Africa during Ramadan can only come away with memories of strange hypocrisy and the act of hiding oneself, rather than piety and self-denial. Perhaps we’re merely trained to notice that more though, or tend to find ourselves in places where it would be seen. Another vivid memory for instance, is of Muslim men entering a discreet basement casino with raincoats draped over their heads to avoid identification. There was a side entrance stairway from an alley made just for this purpose. I won almost a thousand dollars playing roulette in that joint and was quite drunk throughout most of it, but I remember the nervous eyes of the men under their brown coats more.
It’s formative to see religious fear as a traveler (as both violator and morbid inquisitor), and to be an infidel in a kingdom of the terrified devout heightens a sense of freedom within. So, when travel agents tell you ‘there are better times to be in Tunisia,’ you might consider ignoring the advice at least once.
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