Everything has to be a calibrated amount to avoid food piling up in the fridge – extravagant iftars equal leftovers, since people tend not to eat much after fasting for twenty hours. Alongside this, there is at least one kind of stuffed pastry burek, or the Libyan speciality of mubatan, potato wedges stuffed with minced meat. Then we pray and sit down for the self-explanatory aromatic Libyan soup. Which, though an unsettling way to grow up, gave me the advantage of having lived for years in my country of origin, experiencing Ramadan amidst the hustle and bustle of a large extended family, and getting acquainted with the Ramadan siesta, sleeping the afternoons away on mattresses with the wooden shutters closed except for a chink allowing a single ray of sunlight into the room.Įvery iftar begins with dates and milk, bseisa and huwera, and if we’re really making an effort, khushaf and the thirst-quenching qamar al din. My family went through this cycle of immigration, living abroad, and returning – and then we repeated it. This year, many grandmothers will stop asking that question, as families and friends we have known over the years are returning in a homeward bound wave to Libya after over two decades abroad, planning on building their lives there now that Gaddafi is gone. Along with my glass of tea and almonds, I would get the chiding question: ”When are you all coming home?”
#SMULTRON I SKOGEN FULL#
This was the wisdom offered by elderly women, full of life and wrinkles, who commandeered the tea ceremony in my grandmother’s home. Otherwise, we have been living “barra” as people say in Libya – abroad, in the diaspora, or, to translate barra literally, “outside.” There is a proverb I heard constantly growing up: “Ya bani fi gheir bladak, la leik wa la li awladak” – you who builds in a country not your own, it is not yours and it won’t be for your children.
So far in my life, I’ve lived in two countries in the Arab world where Ramadan announces itself with neon lights, empty streets at sunset and everyone staying up till dawn.
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