Ramadan with Mama Nasma

We celebrated Eid at the beginning of the month. As Ramadan drew to a close with the crescent moon making its appearance on the 30th of September, the mosques were filled as sheikhs prayed the sermon; their voices echoing through the neighbourhoods from megaphones perched atop minarets. The next day, a holiday, we were invited to break fast with a woman who worked down the street from us. We arrived at Mama Nasma's in the afternoon as the meal was still being prepared. Mama had recently moved out of Mabibo and was now living with her children, her mother, and her sister in another neighbourhood half an hour away.

Kate and Caroline aided in the meal preparations, dicing and slicing vegetables for the kachi mbali (sp?), a type of local salad most often served with pilau – a spiced rice. As the other women were preparing the pilau and chicken, I sat and talked with the grandmother. She had recently moved up to Dar with Mama Nasma's sister to have surgery done on her eye in hopes of restoring some of her vision. As we sat on the floor, sharing conversation, I in my broken Swahili and her in Swahili, we shared a few meaningful exchanges, but mostly just sat in silence, appreciating the company we both offered each other.

As we sat, sharing the afternoon, the other women on the other side of the room prepared the meal over charcoal stoves. Finally, as the afternoon was drawing to a close, the meal was finished. In Tanzanian tradition – let us remember, “culture is thick” – Kate, Caroline, and I ate apart from the family, who ate together on the floor mat, sharing the meal they had worked hard to prepare. As we broke bread together, I was humbled by the sacrifice this family had made, welcoming us into their home to celebrate a special meal with them while they themselves had barely enough to celebrate this most sacred of holy days. The family, all so welcoming, in openly sharing their faith with us gave us a tremendous lesson in our own, helping to teach us what the Gospel means by “loving thy neighbour.”