Breaking the Fast With Family, Friends And Late-Night Fun

Sally Safaa el-Din, 21, right, enjoys an early morning out with friends in Cairo after she and family members broke the daily Ramadan fast with a meal at home after sunset.
(By Nora Younis For The Washington Post)

By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, October 5, 2007; A14

CAIRO

The sun slipped behind the high-rises on Haram Street. Drivers hit their gas pedals and their car horns, alternately bullying and joking their way through lanes crowded with fellow Cairenes, all racing to reach home before sunset signaled the end of the day's fast during this holy month of Ramadan.

In one Haram Street apartment, Maii Younis placed pigeons in a skillet to brown, handling the birds carefully to keep their rice stuffing from bursting forth. Her daughter Sally, 21, circuited between kitchen and dining room, laying out the china, talking to her mother and guests, and using the kitchen phone to make plans to go out with friends after the family meal.

In Cairo and other cities all around the Middle East, authorities held torches to ancient cannons to signal, as has been done for centuries, that the sun had set -- and that Muslims who had fasted from dawn to dusk for Ramadan could now begin their evening meal, or iftar.

Sally and Maii switched on a bulky radio by the dining room table. State radio came on live from Cairo's 12th-century Citadel in the heart of the old city.

"Madfaaa al-iftaaaar!" an unseen commandant blared over the radio, announcing the cannon with a windup worthy of the Worldwide Wrestling Federation.

"Edrabbb!" he shouted, the order to fire. BOOM!

The family laughed, excited.

Sally abruptly turned serious. "We have to eat NOW," she said, cradling her empty stomach with both hands.

Normally a chaotic, congested city of 16 million people going about 16 million purposes, Cairo for a few moments moved to a single Ramadan rhythm.

Blue flames flickered and fell simultaneously on gas stoves across the city, as Cairo's wives and mothers warmed food for the iftar table. Cairo's streets were emptied of all but a few tardy travelers.

At intersections, do-gooders thrust packets of dates and cups of water toward those who hadn't been able to make it home in time.

Waiters stood by tables set up on sidewalks and under overpasses, ready to serve free iftar meals to workers and poor families, courtesy of Cairo's wealthy.

Sally's father, car dealer Ahmed Safaa el-Din, and her older brother, Ahmad, glided through the front door just before and just after sunset.

What the family and their guests ate: the pigeons, lamb cutlets, cabbage leaves stuffed with rice and spices, pasta soup with duck broth, cakes with minced meat, rice cooked in milk, boiled greens and salad.

"We eat like this every day," Maii insisted, before dropping her claim under gentle mockery from the diners.

The family normally goes to Ramadan prayers after the meal -- one cleric in Cairo, known as "Turbo-sheik," is famous for getting worshipers in and out in a half-hour. But this night the building's elevator was out of order, making the trip to the mosque too difficult for the parents, Maii said.

Stuffed, the family moved first to its formal living room, with its high-backed, gilded chairs, then eased back to the parents' bedroom, lolling on the bed before the family's only television set, as Maii and Ahmed idly stroked Sally's hair.

They talked of politics and the children's jobs. For Ahmad, 25, a civil engineering degree had brought a job as a cellphone engineer, climbing towers without a safety harness.

Sally's mother spoke of the English training Sally had received, and wistfully of her putting it to use professionally. But Sally was selling five or six cars a month at a Peugeot dealership, in a job she had gotten with her father's help. She was making good money.

Sally's dream job, she said, was to sell BMWs.

They nibbled on sweets, ate rice pudding, then apricot pudding, easing it down with apricot juice and hibiscus essence and tea.

Ahmad, who lives by himself, excused himself early. He went first to his mother and then to his father, formally shaking their hands before leaving.

At 11, Sally changed her T-shirt for a satiny top. She stepped out into a city roaring with Ramadan revelry -- children setting off firecrackers, adults yakking in packed sidewalk cafes.

Midnight found her at a cafe embracing friends, many of them young women accompanied by husbands or brothers. Hands slipped into purses, pulling out cigarettes the young friends hadn't dared smoke at home.

A friend's 14-year-old brother -- his sagging eyelids a reminder that his school day had begun at 7:30 a.m. -- began winning at cards.

By 2, Sally and her friends were moving to another restaurant, fortifying themselves with a heavy meal of ful, or boiled beans, for the next day of fasting.

Sally slipped back into the family home, where her mother sat quietly reading the Koran, then dozing through the Ramadan night.

Before dawn, the cycle began again. A drummer moved down Haram Street, pounding to wake up the people in time for a last meal before sunrise began the day's fast.

"Wake up! Wake up!" he cried, calling out to residents by name as he moved past in the dark.

In her bed, Sally slept on.