West To East: A Convert’s Ramadan Voyage From The USA To Egypt

In Egypt I discovered the tangible and life-giving feeling in Ramadan that we are one people; we are striving and falling and rising as one.

By Amy Estrada

Ramadan in Egypt is Something Else

Ramadan Lanterns for sale at one of the many festive booths.

Ramadan is here, and the energy of its celebration surges through each day. Families in all neighborhoods are hanging lights, fluttering flags, and planning their first iftar feast. On the streets giant “pop-up” stalls sell lanterns and decorations, and Ramadan-themed commercials old and new flood television and social media.

Oh, where is this happening? You’re right, not in the USA! As a popular song goes, “Ramadan fee Masr haga tanya” (Ramadan in Egypt is something else). Truly there is nothing like spending one of the greatest Islamic months in Omm Al Dunya (the mother of the world).

Even though prices for staple foods are at record highs here due to inflation and the shocking devaluation of the Egyptian pound (to the point that most families are not sure how they will continue to feed everyone sufficiently filling meals), Egyptians still embrace Ramadan with joy. Likewise, Egyptians pray for the ability to control themselves during these extremely stressful times, as physical confrontations in the street tend to occur a lot more in Egypt during Ramadan!

A Decade Ago

I personally have fasted every Ramadan in Egypt for the past 7 years. Yet, if we were to travel back in time, perhaps to a decade ago when I lived in Atlanta, Georgia, I would have quite a different story to tell about this time of year. On any given day preceding Ramadan, or during it, the scene around me would be unchanged from any other average day. There are no colorful decorations in the streets, no calming yet titillating sound of flags hanging in lines from the balcony. Everyone around is eating, working, and trying to relieve their own personal stress as they would any other day. The cars around me in the street bang the same bass from their trunks, and the right-wing conspiracy theorists go on monitoring chemtrails.

Ramadan tables at a call center in Cairo, Egypt.

On a typical day at work during Ramadan in America, I would fast alone. Coworkers would invite me to eat lunch with them or have cake from a birthday celebration, and I would politely decline. I was respected for my “discipline”, but still felt the sting of feeling isolated and detached from the rest of the Islamic world during such a special time of year.

Breaking fast in those days would look like me fixing a meal for myself around 8 pm, without fanfare or fraternity. 30 days of that, only to look forward to one day off for the Eid celebration. Without Muslim relatives or friends near me, that day passed like any other lazy weekend: sleeping until noon, looking at Facebook on and off throughout the day, and telling my kids to stop bothering each other 300 times before finally ordering us all a pizza.

To me, then, the stories of vivid Ramadan and Eid celebrations in Muslim nations around the world seemed mythical, elusive. It certainly seemed like something I would never experience. After living as a Muslim in the USA for 14 years, how would that ever change?

Striving As One

But then I changed my life and moved to the other side of the world. Egypt, one of the craziest, liveliest, most amazing places to visit and live, became my new home. And I was intoxicated by the new meanings of Ramadan, the beauty that makes it cherished and longed for all year by Muslims everywhere.

Decorations for Ramadan on my own balcony in 2022.

In Egypt, suhoor is taken early, sometimes as early as 230 am. Even if living alone, you can hear all the families in adjoining apartments preparing to eat and washing for fajr prayer. The whole country is awake, eating, and preparing their intentions for the upcoming day, without doubt. To the frustration of some, the days of Egyptian Ramadan are famously scaled down, work is delegated to evening hours, and commerce is run at a minimum. “M3lesh, bokra in shaa Allah” (Never mind, we’ll do it tomorrow inshaAllah) becomes the monthly mantra for all services and orders that are sought.

In Egypt, a man brings juice to a driver at iftar time.

At home, the women spend all day preparing the house and the meal for sunset, when the whole family will gather for breakfast. If not eating at home, families will surge into restaurants in the late afternoon in large crowds to get a table before none are available. Most businesses close for breakfast, but for those who are on the roads, in their cars, or walking, groups of volunteers provide dates, juice, and bottles of water to break the fast. The feeling that we are one, we are striving and falling and rising as one, is tangible and life-giving.

Quran, Adhan, and a Cannon Shot

Even the time of the adhan for maghrib is unique in Egypt. Recitations of Quran on loudspeakers from the nearby masjids precede it, always finalized with a “cannon shot” to signal the end of the day’s fasting. Forgotten are the American days of no adhan, no Quran recitation, no cannon fire.

Also forgotten is the way I used to go to bed at a normal time and wake up for Suhoor. No! In Egypt we stay up until then, visiting with family and neighbors or meeting friends in the cafes that stay open all night. Ramadan in Egypt is not only an experience of food deprivation, but sleep deprivation as well!

 Eid in the USA and Egypt

Ladies at night under an old Ramadan Fanoos.

30 days of that, and Eid arrives, with three full and glorious days of celebration. The Eid prayers are early in the morning, and only offered once. This confused me at first, since I remembered that in America two Eid prayers would be offered, at particularly scheduled times. I didn’t attend them often back then, but when I did, most people left the masjid right after the prayer to return to their (usually immigrant) families. I, however, returned home to watch “Hoarders” or “Clean House” on TV.

When I lived in the USA, I would buy my children “Eid gifts” like what one would offer on a Christmas morning. But in Egypt, the children look forward to getting a new outfit or two and collecting as much cash “eidaya” from aunts, uncles, and grandparents as possible. There are carnivals in the streets, with small rides and games. Families overtake malls, dressed in their best new clothes. Relatives from upper Egypt are visiting those in Cairo, or vice versa.

Lanterns and Flags

Yet perhaps my favorite thing about Ramadan in Egypt is the fact that the decorations hung in the streets – the lanterns and colorful flags- won’t be removed just because Ramadan ended. No, far more enduring than your neighbor’s Christmas lights in July, the Ramadan decorations of each year will remain until they dissolve in the sun, blow away in the wind, or are torn down by the neighborhood children to be used to make homemade springtime kites (tayara wara). Or they just may remain there permanently, to remind us all that we are still striving and falling and rising as one.

Related:

Ramadan and Eid Around the World: In Egypt for the First Time

The Fast and the ¡Fiesta!: How Latino Muslims Celebrate Ramadan