Victuals and Rituals

Friday, 5/9/08

Ramadan, the month of abstaining from food and drink from sunrise to sunset, has begun. The restaurants at the bazaar today hung curtains over their entrances to show respect for those who were fasting. When we drove past the mosque, we were greeted by an awesome sight: a sea of colorful headscarves and robes filled the entire sacred building as hundreds of Muslims were bent down in prayer on the floor. The second time we drove by, the same sea of colorful headscarves and robes were pushing and jabbing their way out of the mosque, chinatown-style. This second sight was not so humbling, but just as impressive, with a dash of hilarity. Someone in the van made the remark that the Brits and the Yanks are the only ones in the world who queue up. And even then we don't call it the same thing. 

This is for my mother: she is more likely than not wondering if I'm getting enough to eat around here. “Enough”, to a Korean mother is usually a gluttonous amount of food, so to her, I would have to answer “no, mom, I'm wasting away out here in the desert.” To the rest, I would say that it's been adequate for survival. There are no restaurants around these parts save for the fancy and expensive Lebanese one 10 minutes away, and no place to grab a quick bite to eat, and so we are all forced to cook for ourselves every day. For those who know me, you might be thinking now that I really must be wasting away because cooking for me is an Event, not an everyday routine. But in fact, I have found ways around this lack of quick eats by living off of packaged soup mixes, cheese sandwiches, cereal, and diet 7-up, each of which take less than 5 minutes to, uh, cook. Luckily, I'm not one of those people who need a huge variety in my meals, and actually I enjoy the ritualistic pouring of the milk over the cereal every morning (and waiting for it to reach the perfect degree of sogginess), the spreading of the cheese over the flatbread, and sitting down to a hot bowl of soup during my lunch break in the solitude and peace of my apartment...it's all very soothing and comforting, and I have yet to get tired of it. You could say that food is my anchor in this sea of change.

What else about food? Tonight, against my vegetarian principles, I had a lamb sandwich at this lovely park that we went to in Erbil called Minare Park. It was the only item on the menu! (Naturally, there was no physical menu.) I wolfed it down and enjoyed it as much as the carnivores around me. The ambience at the park was similar to that of Tarin, the estate-like Lebanese restaurant, with walkways lit by hundreds of lamps, color-lighted fountains, and romantic music blaring from speakers somewhere out there. The fountains here, though, were a truly majestic affair, with water streaming down in sheets from sky-high Parthenon-like pillars. The most interesting part of the park was this circle of pillars crowned at the very top with exactly 21 large lamps with real flames burning inside them. This was where the annual festival celebrating the spring equinox took place, every 21st of March. You may wonder what place such a pagan celebration has in the Islamic region of Kurdistan. Interestingly, Islam was a religion imposed on the Kurds, who were originally believers of Zoroastrianism, a religion theorized to be the original monotheistic religion from which Judaism and Christianity blossomed. They believed in a single god, and fire was used as a symbol of their god, much like the role of the cross in Christianity. 

What else about food? Today, while getting my eyebrows plucked and drastically reshaped by one of my hallmates, I was told that my face is shaped like an almond.