Ramadan at the Hotel

The university put me up in a fancy five-star hotel until I found an apartment. Above is the view from the balcony.

My arrival happened to coincide with Ramadan (which lasts roughly the entire month of September), and the hotel lobby had a big display in the middle of it of figs, nuts, dried dates, and dried apricots--huge piles of everything. It took me about a day to realize that it was not just for decoration, and that it was ok to eat the dates. I later learned that it is traditional to serve dates and apricots to guests during Ramadan. Cool. Of course, people are fasting all day—not even drinking water from sunup to sundown, which I find astounding. It is so hot and humid here that I can’t step outside without sweating buckets (of course, I’m probably still acclimated to Alaska). People must get really dehydrated. The fast gets broken at a big sunset feast called Iftar. The hotel restaurant served a nightly Iftar buffet, complete with a traditional oud (lute-type thing) player and a bunch of nargileh (hookah-type water pipes for smoking tobacco) set up on the outdoor terrace. I didn’t realize that Ramadan had such a festive component; I thought it was somber, like Lent. Of course, I’m sure I’m missing a whole lot of important subtleties, but the Iftar looked like fun. Someone told me that a lot of people actually gain wait during Ramadan, because of the evening feasting. Who knew?