Futari

Futari is the word for the food you eat to break your fast at the end of the day during Ramadan. I'm not very good at fasting. You see you're supposed to wake up at 4:00am to eat breakfast and pray. I've only managed to do that once. So by the time afternoon rolls around and the sun is at its hottest I need water at least! Everyone in the family that I'm staying with seems to get a kick out of the fact that I have to drink. They're always asking me if I'm fasting. When I say yes they say even water? And then laugh at me when I say no. Supposedly no good muslim gets hungry or thirsty during Ramadan. As one man told me "its quite a miracle. We're never hungry."

At the end of the day I enjoy the Futari. We all sit in a circle around the different plates of food on a mat on the ground. Men on one mat women on another. We wash our hands and then eat with our fingers. We eat rice with fish sauce, sweet bannanas cooked with coconut, sugar, and spices, potatoes with beef masala, and all sorts of deep fried cornmeal and potatoe goodies. Yesterday they even made spaghetti especially for me. I even got to eat with a fork! It really does feel good at the end of the day to fill up an empty stomache.