On June 27, the city of Tunis was rushing to get ready for the month of Ramadan, which was supposed to begin that night. Shoppers scurried along the narrow stone paths of the medina, Tunis’s old city, buying special sweets and household necessities for what they believed would be the first day of fasting and the first night of feasting. TV channels showed re-runs of past seasons of special Ramadan programs throughout the day, in anticipation of the new season premieres to be aired that night. My host family moved the dining table from the kitchen to the living room, and transferred old water bottles of thick and colorful fruit juice they had prepared during the past week from their freezer to a fridge they used only during Ramadan.
It was only around 3 p.m. that day that the country’s official moon-sighting committee announced that they were now expecting the new moon to appear the following night, delaying the start of fasting by a day. The next day passed slowly, like an awkward silence, as Tunisians who were looking forward to shortened work days, evening feasts, and new episodes of popular TV shows trudged through more re-runs and another full day of work.
Yet, once Ramadan actually began, with the full approval of the moon-sighting committee, the rhythms of Tunis seemed to change dramatically. Fasting—which included forgoing water—for the first time, I was nervous about Ramadan, especially given the intense summer heat. I soon discovered, though, that in what seemed to me to be a soft form of cheating, many Tunisians, finishing work at 2:30 p.m., took long naps through the afternoon and early evening to make the fasting easier.
Activity in all spheres of life seemed to grind to a halt during the day. The city’s main street, Bourguiba Avenue, which was usually packed with people of all ages sipping coffee and smoking unhealthy numbers of cigarettes at its many roadside cafés, had emptied out by 4 p.m., with all its shops shut. The election commission had chosen to carry out voter registration for elections later this year around the same time as Ramadan; unsurprisingly, turnout was miserable, and the commission was forced to extend registration by another month.
Political parties and civil society groups, already relatively quiet under the current technocratic government, were also fairly dormant, as daily newspapers struggling to come up with news stories gradually retreated into the realms of art and culture. As an intern at the English language news agency Tunisia Live, I felt the change acutely. Politicians, and even activists, stopped answering their phones, while government ministries seemed sleepy and understaffed. Writing about anything other than Ramadan TV shows or music festivals became increasingly difficult.
By around 6:30 p.m., the streets were completely deserted, as the few who remained at work during the afternoon, like taxi drivers and bakers, disappeared into their homes for the Iftaar (the breaking of the fast). Public transport stopped functioning, and only the city’s thousands of stray cats roamed the streets, reveling in their freedom.
The Iftaar was at 7:42 p.m., a time I immediately committed to memory. I became good at subtracting numbers from 42, to calculate the time left in the day’s fast. I also quickly learned the routine of my host family, which they followed like clockwork before the Iftaar. Naima, my hostess, would wake up from her nap and start cooking at 6:30, while her husband, Rashid, turned on the TV to watch the recitation of verses of the Quran. Five minutes before the Iftaar, the monotone of the recitation was suddenly replaced with a loud, yet tuneful, chant praising Allah. This could best be described as a music video, with the lyrics flashing in heavy gold text over what looked like a 1980s graphic rendering of a sea. Yet despite the plastic and slightly purplish look of both the text and the sea, and perhaps because of my hunger and thirst by this point, the chant had a certain power over me, and I could not help staring intently at the screen.
Seconds before the end of the song, my host family’s alarm clock would start to emit a somewhat shrill rendition of the Adhan (call to prayer), indicating it was time to break the fast. A few seconds later, Rashid’s phone would play a lower-pitched version, quickly followed by the TV channel’s broadcast of the Adhan from the city’s main mosque. After about 30 seconds, I would hear the Adhan from the local mosque wafting through the window. These four Adhans, beautiful on their own, but all out of sync and out of pitch with each other, combined to produce a cacophony rather than any sort of harmony. Yet I felt a wave of relief hearing this signal to pull out my water bottle, drink its contents within seconds, refill it, and then rapidly drain it again. I always found abstaining from water much harder than abstaining from food.
Naima’s sister and her family would soon come over to help Naima and her daughter bring out the food, while Rashid prayed and their son watched TV. Ramadan food in Tunisia is somewhat different from that of the rest of the Arab world. Tunisians usually start the Iftaar meal with chorba, a thick soup with grains of barley, followed by brik, a deep-fried pastry filled with egg, cheese, and tuna, with the remaining dishes varying from day to day, and between households. The sheer amount of food at Iftaars was astounding, and as part of Tunisian hospitality, I was encouraged to eat as much as I could physically consume. As we ate, the family avidly watched this year’s top Ramadan show, Nsibti Laaziza, a comedy about a menacing mother-in-law with a thick accent from the city of Sfax.
It was after the Iftaar that Tunis really came to life. Cafés buzzed with large groups of young people, particularly in the trendy seafront suburbs, late into the night. Families with small children lined up outside amusement parks at 10 p.m., waiting to ride the Ferris wheel with its garish flashing lights. Motorists frustrated by the 2 a.m. traffic jams frequently blared their horns. The old city often hosted traditional music performances and soirées. It was as if the entire city had become nocturnal, springing out of its dormant state after sundown.
I often took walks at midnight through the main market in the suburb of Ariana, where I lived. Cafés had put out extra chairs on the pavement, to accommodate the many groups of old men playing cards under the small clouds of cigarette smoke floating into the air above them. These cafés were traditionally male-only, and I usually found the women who weren’t at home watching Dlilek Mlak—Tunisia’s version of Deal or No Deal—strolling around the market, often with kids in tow.
With each successive night of Ramadan, I could feel the momentum and anticipation building toward Eid al-Fitr, the celebration at the end of the month. On the night before Eid, the date verified without hitch by the moon-sighting committee, the excitement reached fever pitch. Crowds had gathered around the sweet shops, while cotton-candy stalls had popped up seemingly out of nowhere. I would twist and turn to get past families wandering among the various roadside shops, looking for new clothes and presents for their children. Middle-aged women bargained agitatedly with shopkeepers for leopard-print headscarves, dresses, blouses, and even shoes (leopard print was in this year). Young girls showed off their tiaras, while boys staged mock battles with toy guns of various sizes. Occasionally I would spot a girl who had managed to persuade her parents to get her a gun instead of a tiara, joining in the battles, though I did not see any boys with tiaras.
After the steady build in momentum during Ramadan, and especially the frenetic energy of the previous night, Eid itself felt slightly anti-climactic. People mostly visited their relatives in other parts of the city, while shops and cafés were closed. After a month of fasting, it seemed strange now to be able to eat or drink whenever I felt like it. The Eid holiday lasted two days, the second of which I spent at the beach, surrounded by families who had pitched makeshift canopies for shade in the hot sun.
In the Judeo-Christian tradition, people usually fast as a means of repentance. Yet with Ramadan, the mood throughout the month was celebratory, and marked by a spirit of generosity. During one excursion out of Tunis, I found myself in a village after Iftaar and unable to get back, only to be invited by a local shopkeeper to stay the night at his place. As someone who eagerly counted down the time till I heard the cacophony of Adhans signaling the end of the fast, I was amazed at the fact that people in Tunis could remain so cheerful throughout a grueling month of 16-hour stretches without food and water. For me, Ramadan was a daily test of my willpower, but for most Tunisians, it was one continuous celebration.
