LDWorldWide

. . . and so, thank goodness, is Halloween. Life has returned to a routine, of sorts, that doesn’t involve a city that refrains from eating and drinking during daylight hours, empties out at 2:30 p.m. (and sits in traffic until 5), and stages evening after evening of fast-breaking “Iftars” when the go-ahead call finally blasts over the loud-speakers. Funny how, when you live in a non-Muslim country, you might be aware of the existence of Ramadan, even that it is an especially important holiday in Islam, but the extent to which it impacts the daily lives of 1 billion of our earth’s citizens for an entire month does not come close to hitting home.

Every (normal) day, we notice regular Koran-reading by soldiers and other people who happen to sit along the street or ride the train, but, during Ramadan, everyone seems to have their noses buried in pocket-sized holy books, and are mumbling over them furiously, presumably in an effort to achieve the universal goal of ingesting the whole thing over the course of the month. By 3 p.m., most folks are looking surly and thirsty and traffic accidents are epic. Most services close early, like the school library, the shops on Road 9, and the post office, or for an hour or so during Iftar, the grocery store. There is plenty of morning activity before the sun rises, when people are trying to squeeze in one last meal before the fast. And, when the new moon finally returns to the sky, individuals who you had no idea you were obliged to (the street sweepers and rubbish carriers, for example), appear at the door, asking for their baksheesh. The breaking of the fast — the Eid — is a major, three-day holiday; we took advantage of the time off from school and work to head to Sharm el Sheikh on the Red Sea . . a story for another entry.

Though Halloween in Egypt does not include “trick or treating” in the American fashion, our family had more than enough opportunity to observe this great American celebration, including assorted parties, parades, and a huge carnival at Anna’s school. Expatriate observances have not yet caught up with the U.S.-based transformation of Halloween into a PC-from-the-right “Fall Holiday” — over here, it is still all about ghosts, goblins, repeated playings of the “Monster Mash”, and an appalling amount of candy. This year, thanks to Granny’s quick ability to make a dress and stick it in the mail, Anna went as “Annie,” her latest cultural obsession. (Indeed, she even now carries a circa-1980, metal Annie lunchbox to school every day, due to Vanessa’s impressive facility with E-Bay.) Evie’s costume alternated among dress-up outfits we happen to own; for various occassions, she showed up as, respectively, a princess, a fairy, and a gymnast. Over the course of the Halloween weekend (and it did seem endless), both girls appeared in three performances of their beloved (though artistically underwhelming) Kareoke troup, the Stars of Tomorrow.

So, yes, back to normal, sort of.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 13th, 2005 at 12:39 am and is filed under LDW, WorldWide . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.