The supermarkets sell out their sale itemsThe car dealers drop their rental pricesDanube Home lets you shop for freeThe restaurants hibernate until sundown and iftarand Ramadan NightsThe women in my class tell meYou cannot even draw blood or get injectionsAs it will upset the intake of the body.
“Will you join us”Ghada asks me in class when I wish them good luckI say I know a friend who does a fasting diet wherehe only eats 500 calories on two days of the week“Will you join us” she asks againI tell her I used to go hungry as a child for days on endI leave it there for her but still she is asking“Will you join us”So I tell her my people starved to death in the Great Famine of 45and that a million more died escaping the Famine“Will you join us”I see she is not going to stopSo I say I will, I will join you for a day each week“Inshallah” she says “inshallah”
I picture myself trekking at early morning to a tent in the desertAnd sitting in the shade all dayWaiting for the darkness to save me,Waiting for my camel to bed down for the night,So I know I can unpack my saddlebags of dates and flatbread,honey and walnut,And eat for the first time in a long time,In the knowledge that it was always going without and hungerthat made me find the comfort that has endured for me,It was always the days of hunger in Mayfield and Montenottethat made me feel I was living.Even now some days I’ll work through dinner and lunchso the emptiness in my stomach will remind meof how I found comfort reading as a child and teenager.The hunger will tell me I’m livingAnd the smouldering headache will tell me I have worked hard.So, yes, I’ll join them in Ramadan for a day each week to rediscover something I’d forgotten.