Why would anyone participate in a forign cultural event?
"When in Rome...." they say.
The cultural and dogmatic partaking of the fast observed during the holy lunar month of Ramadan is a religious experience that exhibits a deep presence among the Muslim village, town, and cities of the last couple countries we've trekked; more so than Christmas time at Union Square if you can believe it. But don't think they too hold up bright lights and sing carols. The presence of Ramadan is rather inversely presented, from the vantage I've experienced by the seat post of a bicycle. Or rather, inversely hidden, I should say.
The fast is strictly enoforced - if your a Muslim. Being caught eating or even drinking water at times when the sun is out has harsh repercussions; tales of punishment and chastisement grew wilder and wilder as I inquired more and more about disobedience durring the holy fast. No one could really recal the last break from tradition though. Even if you're a non-Muslim Chinese or Indian, of which there are a prolific residence here in Malaysia, your restaurant can be fined and permenany shut down if caught serving food to a Sister or Brother. Big Brother is watching.
Hence tales of secret handshakes and coded knocks on wooden doors in quite corners, invited rumors focused on finding secret black market food stals. ("Pssst, you wana get full?").
That is, any other time of the year and shops would be open. And it's not only the food shops that are closed. Most all shops and restaurants are barricaded shut, with the curtains drawn like some small old western town right before a gun man's showdown at high noon. I asked a women once durring the fast where Chris might grab some food. She smiled, laughed, and continued walking away.
Despite the piercing presence of Ramadan in Malaysia, not everyone participates. Namely the some Indians and most Chinese. Granted they are not Muslim, and therefore do not participate in the fast. None that I've seen or heard about. So, then, I ask again: Why would anyone want to participate in a cultural event that is not of there own religion? It seems that no one does, not even the locals.
Backpackers enjoy crop and moon festivals, travelers partake in night markets and old jungle treks - why don't more partake in the Ramadan fast?
I'll do it.
I've actually wanted to partake in the fast back in the States but I didn't want to do it alone. Now, faced here against an entire nation, it will happen. Here are my very personal notes in dealing without the consumption of food from sunrise (about 7:10 am) until sunset (about 7:30 pm) local time.
Love,
-A
It seems to me that, as far as self inflicted religious experiences go, Lent is easy. Give up coffee, chocolate, cigarets, beer, masterbation, or what ever vice you may choose and just don't do it for a while. A great way to practice self restraint. However, my volunteered participation is now an annoyance after so many years rather than a religious/spiritual moment of serenity.
Plus, lets face it, it's easy to cheat. No chocolate? Fine, I'll double down on my coffee.
I've participated in Lent for several years now apart from any religious bindings, replacing one vice with another. Though I am not Catholic, I do enjoy the process of self restraint; and from a man who has terrible impulse control issues (especially when it comes to ordering food or beer), a little self restraint training is an amazing thing.
Despite what is seemingly apparent, Ramadan doesn't teach restraint. For me Ramadan teaches appreciation. There are many poor and hungry people on this world with so many of us (I'm looking at you America) taking for granted the immediate disposal of food. Any kind of food we would want really.
Fasting here is not about restraint or starving, it's not even so much about pious tutelage. I experienced it as the recognition of an other through the self. Hunger is never a positive emotion for anyone; it nags all of us in our deepest unconscious, with a long fingernail.
So, where was I? Oh yeah, yesterday.
Yesterday was the first day of fasting. A time before the Sunrise to break bread with family and stock up on all the nutritional goodness your body will need for the coming day, just under eleven and a half hours of fasting. In these days, breakfast is especially important. And somehow, I just managed to have slept through breakfast accidentally.
Not off to a good start.
I had to laugh, then, after reading in the local paper that day an article listing "How to Have A Successful Ramadan." Wouldn't you know it, "don't skip breakfast" was right there at number one. Oh well, can't go back in time. Yet.
Somehow the day passed.
I was not starving come dinner time. To tell the truth, I was more thirsty than anything. Really thirsty. Really, really thirsty. I've been traveling in South Eastern Pacific for five months now and seen the lack of fresh drinking water first hand. It's not that water was available at the local corner store and I was just too cheap to buy it. It's that there was not even a corner store. Being thirsty in some ways is worse than being hungry. The human body can survive two weeks without food but only two days without liquids.
That is why I brought a liter of water with me to dinner. I was very dehydrated and time came to replenish my liquids with a side of eggs, chicken, rice, Portuguese style cooked shrimp, a spicy mango salad, and two tall glasses of OJ.
Special note: No pictures exist of the food because all the meals were devoured instantly! Here's the destruction.
Today was easier in one way, more difficult in another. Easier in that I awoke with plenty of time to eat before the Sun came up. Not diverse or very nutritious, but like my friend Steve says, "it all turns to energy, regardless."
Today was much more difficult in that we continued our cycling journey. Now before you get worried, let me place this caveat. I will be drinking water on my bike. I will still observe the Sun's presence as a consumption indicator, but riding up the Cameron Highlands with no food and no water is not mad, it's ludicrous. It wouldn't even be a type if accomplishment if completed, it would just be stupid. So, on the days I cycle, water under the Sun. On the days I don't, no food and no water during the day.
It's currently two minutes past five in the evening and I'm a little hungry. I'm more lightheaded than anything and don't want any more water. It was a quick and short day, just over sixty kilometers from Kuala Lumpur to Kuala Kuku Bahru.
Now, people have told me what to expect when fasting for the first time. A clearer mind, a more focused demeanor, perhaps a cranky offense. But they also mentioned a trait that, at this moment, is welcomed. More energy. No good since 7:10 am, four hours of 10% grade hill climbing an I'm still here in Cafe Perniagaan while Chris...
Sleeps.
Saturday, July 13 2013 - The day has started, it's 10:02 and I've skipped breakfast again.
Really, it had to be done. Two nights ago we were denied places to spend the night. Our mosque, temple, police station attempts all scurried us away from a chance to sleep under a a roof, even if the space was available and outside. As the night came closer upon us (dinner for me now ends just before the last twilight looses out to total night darkness), we scouted an abandoned mini soccer field. Perfect (in theory).
The nights sleep was punctured by sharp awakenings of the insect verity. Wasps, mosquitos, ants, the occational gnat. I maybe grabbed three hours of sleep.
The night before we spent in Raub.
As it happens, we did 1200m of climbing to Sungai Koyan, a town so small it's not on our map, its residents all Muslim, no option for Chris' lunch.
Sunday, July 21st, 2013 - They say spiritual revelations come to you when you fast during Ramadan. Whether or not people do, the fast has for me (especially cycling through the Cameron Highlands) changed the relationship with my body for ever. Or, as Chris elegantly put it one day, "you're fucking stupid."
I disagree. I have now completed my 11th whole day and do not regret my choice. The fast has not brough me religious revelations, it's brought something more valuable. Participating in early morning beginnings of the fast and night time breakings of it endow me with certain energy. Its true what they said. What was once fueled by gasoline station's best options at snacks along the road, I now am forced to fan the fire inside me by what's there. Like the song says, "I ain't no perfect man, I'm just doing the best that I can with what it is I have."
Monday, July 22nd, 2013 - I'm f**king hun-gry.
Friday, August 2nd, 2013 - Six more days to go. Strange, I had to count the days remaining. It's not that I am not still hungry (Im watching Rajiv and Chris devour their noodle soup, trying to not let the drool hit my keypad), I am. I suppose my body just knows that it must wait. I do somewhere unconsciously start to wonder how many hours remain until sunset. Yet at this point - I should rather say at this day (because there are good days and bad) - the wait is calming. I don't rush to devour my food, I have more respect for what I am eating, and (I have to say) the food you eat at the end of a day tastes AMAZING.
Monday, August 5th, 2013 - Waiting just outside a local market.
I have an undesirable habit when Im hungry: I habitually google image typs of food that I miss. Super burritos for sure, however this tenancy ranges from anything small like a proper Kit-Kat bar of chocolate to (as it happened yesterday) In-And-Out burgers. Like Giants baseball, torture! Why do I do this? I don't know, why do we never avoid cycling in the monstrous heat that is Thailand everyday from 11:00 to 14:00? Masochists I suppose.
Peeping images over google is one thing, yet it is a completly other phenomenon of torture to smell and be in the proximity of the food I've been counting down the hours for. If a part to Ramadan is to know what hunger is so to be more sympathetic to it in future others, then I say lesson learned.
On a normal day, hunger can be suppressed by pure lack of possibility. The three of us (Chris, Rajiv, and I) are in the distance conquering rhythm of pushing off at 7:00 and not cutting out the day until just about sunset. Until just about my time to eat. Today, unfortunately, is different.
"I'm done for the day," Chris looked up to Raj and I to say. It's understandable, we've all had these days, I know I have. Furthermore, if you don't have the sort of days when the spirit is willing but the body is depleted then you are doing something wrong - your not pushing yourself, you're staying in a safe first gear.
And so it comes that I am waiting in the shade behind the market where local people come and go in waves to collect food for dinner, produce for later, and snaks for the short trip back to their motorbike.
I know what hunger is and all I can do is wait. Fortune upon me, the dogs here know what it is like too and are keeping me company. One piece of sate for me, and one for my homie please.
Tuesday, August 6th, 2013 - Today is the exact six month monthaversery since leaving home. Six months.
I'll come to reflect on this in another post. Right now I want to capture an ironic moment.
We were going to spend the night in a Wat as per usual when Raj needed wifi. So we shopped at the local market for a few things to eat, strapped them to our bikes, and took off for a restaurant cafe three kilometers down the road. Pleasent ride, at first.
When we pulled in to the joint, I was slightly damp. Right on time - we had entered the restaurant not more than one minute before a torrential Thai downpour turned the evening sky black and the dirt paths to sand pits of mud. We were stuck for the time.
Not so bad really, except that now Im here in the early morning hungry for breakfast, a place for food with no access to it. And it's not like these places have an "opening" hour, no. It's whenever they feel its time to begin work that the kitchen will begin to sizzle. I can respect that.
I can accept it too. I'll have to.
Friday, July 9th, 2013 - The end of Ramadan.
I was expecting of myself more. More jubilation, more excitement, more fantasies and plans for snacking for the first time in over a month tomorrow.
Alas, no. What essentially has been a readjustment to waking up before the sun and cutting out snacks and lunch, Ramadan is no burden at all. In hindsight, of course.
I love the extra energy I posses, I don't feel as sloppy (mentally) as before. I've built and sustained an internal fire that I covet fiercely.
What will change tomorrow? How long will my abstinence endure? And has the holy fast really changed me at all?
Good questions all around. I don't know the answers; I'll be taking my queues one day at a time. Living in the moment. I can't ask you to do the same, because, i know in some ways I want what you have.
I wish you all very best.
Love,
-A
No comments:
Post a Comment