What is Orozo? (again)

Orozo is over now but that doesn't mean that you people back in the states shouldn't know what it is. What it is is here now.



It is now five-thirty in the morning and Eje and I just got finished with eating ‘breakfast.’ Breakfast (as well as lunch, usually) consists of tea (with milk) and bread, halva, and (because it’s the season) pears and apples. Of course if you are averse to any of these solid foods you don’t have to eat them, they’re so overrated anyway; you can just drink tea (with milk) for breakfast. It’s just past five-thirty in the morning, the thought of showing his face hasn’t even occurred to the sun, and I don’t have to go to school today. So why am I up drinking tea at this hour? Answer: because it’s Orozo and I’m participating. Orozo is a month-long Muslim fast that lasts throughout the month of October; culminating on the American holiday of Halloween (my favorite). The individual can choose whether to participate or not and if the individual does ‘take the plunge’ he or she does not eat, drink, spit, use foul language, have sex, or do anything else fun all day long to show his or her devotion to Allah. Every morning he or she must wash his face three times in a ritualistic fashion followed by his mouth, his eyes his jawbone and his feet all three times. Is it easy? It is. I get hungry from about ten in the morning to two or three, but that soon subsides. When dinnertime comes at about six-thirty or seven I am not hungry because my stomach has shrunk to the size of a ping-pong ball. My ping-pong ball-sized stomach doesn’t need much food to satisfy its (literal) hunger so usually I can subsist on bread and a little soup (with shorpo, noodles, potatoes and fat) like I did last night. It’s a little bothersome having to get up at four o’clock in the morning, but I like it. It’s quiet and one can drink one’s tea and eat one’s bread (if one chooses) in peace without such annoying distractions as the television. I hate the television.