The Thought Does Count

Ramadan began today. All my Muslim friends have started fasting during the daylight hours. One friend explained to me that the fast is meant to help the poor. Instead of using your money to buy food for yourself, you are supposed to give the money (or some food) to the poor. You share in their sufferings for a season by depriving yourself of food. I know Ramadan is significant for many reasons, and the meaning varies from person to person (much like Christmas in the West). This is how my friend explained it to me, however, and I like the idea that there exists in the world a month when the rich become poor that the poor might be rich.

I met the Omondi’s and their visitor Abby for lunch today at Leonardo’s, a paradise of homemade Italian Gelato and fresh pasta, located within dangerously close walking distance of my home. I ordered a Hawaiian pizza and only finished half, so I carried the rest home with me. I decided to give it to Hassani, the gardener in my apartment complex who is always ready to help me carry things upstairs. I told him to come get it when his work was done. I didn’t want to tempt him to eat in the middle of the day. So, about 20 minutes ago, he knocked on my door, and I opened to find him holding a small bowl with something wrapped in a green leaf and tied with twine. He said with a big smile, “I have come with your food!” So I went and got his package of pizza, and he left me with this… thing. He didn’t tell me what it was called – only that it is somehow related to a banana, and his mother used to make it for breakfast. I wish I could post smells on the internet, because I’ve never smelled anything quite like it. (I smelled it behind closed doors, of course, for smelling food in front of the person offering it is offensive here.) And the taste… well, there is definitely something banana-ish in there, and it’s a little smoky, and mostly it tastes like a dense loaf of nothing much. Even so, that small token brightened my whole day!