Breaking Fast

Many of you know this past month has been Ramadan. During the last week of Ramadan, the locals throw party after party to celebrate its completion, and this week I got to attend two! The level of hospitality in this culture is unbelievable and absolutely incredible. People you don't even know treat you as royalty and invite you to their family gatherings. On Monday evening, I was invited to a dinner of a friend of a friend. He hosted this meal for family and friends at his workshop after evening prayer (It was still Ramadan, so we ate at 6:35 after the men prayed). When we arrived, we sat down on the mats with the women, while the men went to another area of the workshop to eat. They started putting platters of food down in front of us, and we huddled up around the platter closest to us. Everyone in your huddle eats off the platter using only your right hand, which I’m still getting used to! I kept wanting to go in with the left one, and ended up sitting on my hand to remember not to use it! Haha It was also the first time I had eaten rice with my hands, but I kinda liked it! There’s something fun about making a mess with your food. I managed to master the scoop, pinch, and bring to your mouth technique after a few failed attempts. Those first failed attempts left quite the stain on my shirt, though! White shirt was a bad choice. I'm learning that white is actually never a good choice here- I always end up getting dirty.

 So on Friday I attended the second “breaking fast” meal of the week. This one was a bigger celebration because it was to celebrate Eid-the ending of their holy month of fasting. Ramadan ended on our Island two days ago and you can see the excitement all around! Everyone is dressed in their nicest outfits, covered in beautiful henna, and wearing huge smiles! Friday was the first daytime meal they had enjoyed for the past 30 days. I got as dressed up as I could- which is limited because I don’t have any dresses here yet and I don’t own any make-up. (I do think I need to invest in some eyeliner in order to fit in here- but maybe next occasion.) We arrived at the house, were greeted, and led to a sitting area for a while until lunch was ready.

We were then separated again into men and women for the meal. At lunch, I attempted to speak some Swahili to the women, and was semi-successful! But I really had a good time talking to their kids today!  They are more on my vocabulary level and tend to speak slow enough for me to understand! For lunch, we were served another delicious spread- rice, meat, watermelon, oranges, and bananas.  It was so yummy!

I managed to eat my rice and meat with my right hand AND without getting any stains! Making progress. After we finished eating, we all returned to the living room to hang out for a little while longer. The owner of the house came and gave out gifts to all the children and women- yep, I got 500 shillings!! (Before you get too excited for me, 500 shillings is roughly 50 cents) BUT I’ll take it! That’s almost two dala dala rides to town!

When it was time to leave, we were putting on our shoes at the front door and I could only find one of mine. We searched and no one could find it, so I went ahead and accepted the fact that I had now lost 2 out of the 3 pair of sandals I brought with me. We started walking down the stairs to leave when I heard the little girls laughing hysterically. They had found my shoe!  Somehow my shoe ended up downstairs in the mouth of the pet parrot. Yep, very random. Not exactly sure how it got there, but I am grateful I go my shoe back- although the parrot wasn’t too happy about giving it up. It was such a fun experience and fun week with friends!

(My camera broke weeks ago, which has made blogging tough! Thankfully, I have been stealing some pics from friends to keep you guys in the loop- thanks Doro for letting me steal! I have another camera on the way, so hopefully won’t have to miss out on too many more photo ops!)