Iftar vs. Cinco de Mayo

On June 8, we joined our teammates at their house for a special dinner.  Two sisters (and their families) had invited both of our families to break the daily fast of Ramadan (called Iftar) with them.  One of the sisters cooked for FIVE hours at our teammates' house, and then she left to change clothes, get her family, and go gather dishes with her sister.

They brought back plates, bowls, glasses, serving platters, etc for the evening meal.

The ladies dished up bowl after bowl of goodness, and Kylie, Karis and I would try to find places for all of it on the plastic table cloth laid out on the floor.  It was nearly impossible.

We finally resorted to putting stuff on the kids “table.”

This is what the "adult table" looked like when we got started.  Dolma, salad, sweet rice with raisins and almonds, olives, yogurt water, and orange juice

Doug and our male teammate sat in the front room with the men, talking.  All the other kids entertained themselves with different things.  But what surprised me was that when we heard the mosque’s call to prayer and we knew the time of iftar had come, no one started eating.

Basically, if the women weren’t ready, it didn’t matter if you were hungry or not, no eating was happening.

Here are the sisters in the kitchen putting everything into small bowls so that each dish is accessible for each person on the table. 

They don't do a lot of "passing around."  You kind of eat what's just in front of you, so you want to make sure it's ALL in front of you.

The table continued to fill. Chicken, beef, goat, rice, soup, okra, bread, dates....

(Most people here break fast with three dates first.  This tradition stems from the belief that this is how Muhammed broke his fast.)

I didn't take a picture at the table's fullest (sorry), because we immediately started moving bowls over to the "kids' table," so we'd have a little breathing room.

 

I took this when we started putting things on the kids' table 

And this is the view in front of my place setting!

We asked if we could bless the meal; they agreed, and then they all broke fast with three dates.  After that, it was every man for himself.  Hands were flying everywhere reaching for food. 

It was so delicious!  I don’t know how they were going to eat breakfast around 2am, because I knew I would be full for the entire next day.

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As much fun as visiting at the table was, it was soon time to clean up.  All the older kids helped get everything in the kitchen, and then the two national ladies kicked them out of the kitchen so we could get down to business. 

I washed dishes for 3 hours while they put food all kinds of places.  They were splitting it between families, trying to find containers, drying dishes I had washed, separating out which dishes were whose, and re-packing the dishes in boxes and containers.. 

When those ladies left at 11pm, that kitchen was spotless!  I was pretty amazed, and I’m kicking myself for not taking a picture of all the dishes stacked on the counter to show you.  It reminded me of the kitchen scene near the beginning of Disney's “The Sword in the Stone,” with tall towers of dishes, barely standing up straight.

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As a comparison, this is how I did Cinco de Mayo at our house this year.

Plastic plates! small bowls of salsa, small bowls of cheese, two bowls of chips, and two bowls of taco meat. 

The taco soup, spanish rice, pinto beans, yogurt, guacamole, cheese, salsa, and basically everything had to be passed around.

It was delicious, and clean up was SO much easier, but both events were full of fun and making memories.