When the muezzin cry for the maghreb — dusk — prayer echoed through the room, there was a corresponding ripple of smiles from those who’d been fasting all day.
But there wasn’t a corresponding lunge for the food laid out in front of us. Which surprised me as much as anyone since I was one of those fasting.
Previously I’d always assumed the final hour or so of each day during Ramadan must have been an ordeal of hunger and thirst, followed by a sudden sating of that at the meal known here as iftar.
The supposed Muslim ideal for the initial break of the fast — a couple of dates and a cup of tea, then off to do the maghreb prayer and return for a full iftar meal — seemed as nonsensical and humanity-defying as, say, Catholic prohibitions on priests marrying, homosexuality and on what the church described euphemistically as “bodily self pollution”.
But it was OK. Really. I didn’t even really feel hungry, let alone ravenous, or even thirsty.
And the dates were nice.
Today marked one year since I’d landed in the Dhabs. My “abuversary”, as it’s known locally. And by chance on that day I’d been invited to an iftar by Ali, the only Emirati who is able to recognise me by name.
And if I was going to take part in one of the Emirati rituals of breaking the fast during the month of daylight fasting, I figured I might as well go the full hog (which is not the best metaphor for a Muslim nation but, hey…)
So I rose before the fajr (dawn) prayer and tried to scoff a couple of aloo chapatis and drink 1.5l of water, only to find there was room for one or the other of these but not both unless I’d been willing to start about an hour earlier.
Then I went back to sleep until it was time to get up again for my very gentlemanly 10am newspaper start time.
The day was fine, although that had a lot to do with working in an office that is not just airconditioned but featured a thermostat perpetually set on the Antarctic Ice Shelf setting. It’s why I keep my fleece at the office, so I don’t succumb to hypothermia in a nation with both some of the hottest summers in the world and the planet’s highest per capita energy usage.
Not everyone enjoyed the privilege of freezing their buns off in overenthusiastic aircon. The hordes of subcontinental labourers had to not only be outside in this heat but also work in it. On their one day off each week, they could be seen hiding from the sun in whatever shade was available.
Just before Ramadan began, I’d had a tiny hint at what life outside would be like in the 45degC/114degF heat. Ten days before the imams’ sighting of the crescent moon prompted the start of Ramadan, I’d spent an afternoon marking the route for a run for the hash house harriers group in the Dhabs.
At 3pm it was about 48degC/120degF and, as I inevitably do when I venture briefly outside in the middle of a Gulf summer, I thought: “This isn’t that bad.” I was using a walk/run multiplier of 2.5 so that a 40 minute run should take about 1h40m to set by walking.
Yes, it was hot in that fan-forced-oven way to which I’d become accustomed. And, yes, sweat started trickling down my back after about 15 minutes. But I’d drunk 1.5 litres of water immediately before setting out and was carrying another litre which felt like it’d be entirely superfluous.
After 30 minutes, every fibre of my clothing was drenched in sweat, even the sleeves of my T-shirt. After 45 minutes, the superfluous litre of water was long gone. After an hour, I was thinking seriously about ducking across to the aircon of the Sheikh Khalifa Medical City in the next block to recover.
Just over an hour, the amount of sweat dripping down my clothing was enough to short out my iPod shuffle. After 80 minutes, even my sleeves — the last place to succumb to sweat — were wet enough to short out my repositioned iPod.
When I finished setting the run, I staggered over to the famously glacial aircon of Khalidiyah Mall and immediately drank two litres of water. After half an hour, I was still sweating with a profusion and leaving a puddle on the floor. After an hour in the ice-cave temperatures, I dragged myself outside and back to meet the others for the run.
By then temperatures had moderated to about 43degC/110degF and, unlike in Ramadan, we were able to drink before sunset without fearing arrest or having to hide, as shown here.
But I still didn’t feel right for the rest of the evening, as evinced by having just one beer at the hash circle and despite the endless (nonalcoholic) drinks that passed my lips, I didn’t feel 100% again until late the next day.
I cannot even imagine what the Muslim labourers who work outside all day during Ramadan manage to survive. I almost croaked after about two hours in the sun and they’re out there all day.
But back on my abuversary in the midst of Ramadan, being inside in polar temperatures meant I never really felt thirsty.
So far the biggest privation of Ramadan had been what I later recognised as caffeine withdrawal headaches because not being able to drink it at my desk meant I didn’t have as much of it as I usually do. Those had faded after about four or five days.
When I snuck out of the office a little before 5pm, I still didn’t feel particularly hungry or thirsty and slaking either would have been through force of habit and distractability rather than need.
Hailing taxis in Abu Dhabi in the afternoon is always interesting, thanks to the hypoglycaemic nature of the drivers’ blood-sugar levels and the increasingly few numbers out of the road before iftar. Immediately before dusk at 6.40pm, the chance of finding a taxi is almost nil as they all rush home with a pace in inverse proportion to their driving skill. Then at dusk itself, traffic stops in the way it does back home whenever the All Blacks are playing an important test match.
But around 5pm it was fine and I headed to join Ali near Marina Mall. The majlis (the Emirati equivalent to Queensland’s verandahs or Kiwi decks) he’d organised was airconditioned as well so there was no great hardship involved.
And, after about 90 minutes the maghreb muezzin cry rang out through the evening sky. Supposedly the test in the Qu’ran is the day is over when you can no longer differentiate between a white thread and a black thread but the Emirati interpretation is a little easier than that and it’s still reasonably light when the maghreb prayer call comes.
I really didn’t feel hungry or thirsty. A massive array of food had been arranged in front of us in the half-hour before dusk but there wasn’t that desire to dive in. I really did start with a couple of dates.
Ali proved to be a fine host and he had a few of his schoolday friends with him, including a helicopter pilot with the UAE airforce.
I’ve always gone local in every place I’ve ever lived and within a year I’d always had more friends who hail from the place I was living than from the place where I’m from, but that trend has come to an abrupt halt in the Dhabs.
Part of it was linguistic with the Arabic/English divide, part of it is the inherent privacy of most Emiratis, part of it was also socio-economic and most of them lived in a different fiscal stratosphere.
Every Emirati I’ve spoken to have seemed surprised when I say it’s hard to meet them, and that makes sense since they’re just 20% of Abu Dhabi’s population so they’re always meeting us Western folk. It must be even worse in Dubai, where Emiratis comprise just 10% of the population.
Whenever I do meet them, I have always been impressed by the Arabic instinct towards hospitality. It reminds me of travelling through the former Soviet Republic of Georgia back in 1995, when it became clear the greatest social faux pas any Georgian could make is to seem stingy. The statue on the hill above Tblisi, Georgia’s capital, bore a sword in one hand and a goblet in the other. One to smite and one of welcome. We only ever saw the latter.
I’m not sure if the fasting beforehand was a factor, but my hunger was moderate that night and not the thru-hikerlike reaction to AYCE buffets. The entire evening reinforced the impression that Ramadan really is looked forward to by most Muslims, even though the Emirates is stricter than most places.