Ramadan is normally a time for families and friends to get together, but this year it is rather different, as the mosques are closed and there is a curfew from 7 pm to 5 am.

I decided to join the family here in their Ramadan routines, including fasting, but excluding praying. We are now 2 weeks in to the 30 day period. Ramadan is the 9th month of the Moslem calendar, which is entirely based on the cycles of the moon, so it gradually moves round the calendar year by about 11 days a time. It starts at the first sight of the crescent of a new moon, and the day starts at sunset. This actually means that this year it started on Friday 24 April in Mecca, but on Saturday 25 April in Morocco.

In Morocco the clocks change by 1 hour just for the month of Ramadan. Since the clocks changed in March in the UK, we had been on the same time, but now we are on GMT, so 1 hour ahead of the UK.

Just before Ramadan this household consisted of 11 people; Assia and her husband Jamel who live in this house; her youngest sister, her husband and 2 sons; one of her brothers, his wife and daughter; her mother; me.

On the Friday before Ramadan started her mother and her brother and his family moved back to her mother’s house, where they all live with another widowed sister and another married sister, her husband and 2 older children. So we were down to 7 people for the start of Ramadan. During the next week children kept swapping back and forth between the houses, so we actually varied between  6 and 8 people for the first week or so.

I was told that the family of 4 were going back to their own home in the suburbs of Rabat after about 8 days, and this duly happened last Monday. They had been living with Assia since just before I arrived, leaving their house empty.

All these moves are, I am certain, against the local lockdown rules, but actually leave this household safer. We are now down to just 3 adults, so the house is very, very quiet. The main noise just now is the ticking of the clock.

There are two main ways in which Ramadan differs from the rest of the year, eating and praying. It is supposed to be a time to think hard about what being a Muslim means.

There are always 5 prayer times each day for Moslems each preceded by the muezzins singing the ‘call to prayer’ from the minarets of the mosques. The above times are when the muezzin commences each call. The times for Fajr and Maghrib are the start and end times for the fasting period each day. Fajr is determined by the very first light of dawn, and Maghrib is at sunset. These times seem to be fixed for the whole country, though the actual times of the associated events must vary quite a lot in such a large country. They are based on Rabat, which is, of course, the capital and where I am. On the first day Fajr was at about 3.56 and Maghrib at about 19.05, so the fast was for for just over 15 hours; by the end of 30 days it will be well over 16 hours.

The family have been holding group prayers for Fajr, Maghrib, and Isha and praying individually at Dhuhr and Asr. Outside Ramadan, since  the mosques closed all the prayers have been done individually by everyone, except occasionally one or both of the boys prayed with their father. When they pray individually, they still pray out loud (some very quietly and some at full volume), but they go into a room by themselves.

The prayer mats are laid out each morning and evening. I assume that the TV is on the wall that faces Mecca.

One of the men leads the prayers from the front, with the other man and boys behind him, and the women at the back, all facing the TV. Praying is much more energetic than I had imagined, and is quite a workout. There are 3 positions: standing, sitting back on the heels, and the usual face to the floor that we all know of. The latter requires 7 point contact (2 feet, 2 knees, 2 hands and the entire front of the face from forehead to chin) and is said to allow negative energy to drain from the body. They change from one position to another several times each prayer session. Presumably because they have done this every day from a young age, even the elderly are very flexible. I would not be able to do it. There are dispensations, and one can pray sitting down, but it is not deemed as efficacious.

The Fajr and Maghrib prayers are quite short, but at Isha they also include Tarawih, which is some additional prayers and a reading from the Koran. The Koran is divided into 30 sections, and their aim is to read the whole of it during Ramadan.

I understand that in this family,  the men would normally go to the Mosque 5 times each day, accompanied by the women for Maghrib and Isha.

Women who are menstruating are not allowed to pray at any time of the year.

Pregnant and breast feeding women, menstruating women, children under puberty, the very elderly and the chronic or short term sick do not normally fast. Menstruating women and the short term sick are, however, expected to fast for the number of days they have missed once Ramadan is over. Children under puberty can fast or not as they like. As they near puberty they are encouraged to fast for a day or so to get used to what is involved. The children not fasting were only involved in the Maghrib and Tarawih prayer sessions.

Fasting is not quite what I had assumed. It is ‘nil by mouth’ for the entire time, but there is none of the self denial that I associate, for instance, with Lent. In fact we are eating more, and more richly than normal.

The first meal of the day is known as Sehour and has to be completed before the call to prayer for Fajr, so we started getting up at 3.15 am, it is now 2.55 am and will be about 2.35 am by the end of Ramadan. It is the normal Moroccan breakfast, always comprising mint tea, various breads and pancakes, honey with melted butter, dairylea type cheese triangles and from time to time any of: eggs scrambled with turmeric and olive oil; fried eggs; olives; olive oil; small pieces of Edam cheese; jam. For Ramadan the normal tinned apricot jam has been replaced by delicious homemade strawberry conserve. The normal loaded table also now has almond brewatts (like small samosas filled with ground almonds flavoured with orange flower water, fried and then dunked in a honey and sugar mix, then sprinkled with sesame seeds), svoaf (a mixture of roughly ground roasted almonds, spices, a little sugar, water and melted butter which looks to have the consistency of breadcrumbs – it is eaten with a teaspoon very slowly, as in the mouth it initially feels like dry muesli, and you would choke if you tried to swallow before chewing it well – it is delicious), soured milk, yoghourts and cake(s). So it a mixture of breakfast and afternoon tea.

From my experience of up to 11 hour days in the Scottish hills, I realised that the almond goodies are essential eating, as they release their calories much slower, so provide energy later in the day. I try to avoid too much sugar at Sehour, as I have to get back to sleep afterwards. By following this, I have never once felt hungry, nor short of energy. I occasionally dream of a cup of tea though. Of course I am not getting much exercise due to lockdown. The real mental problem is that, without meals and tea / coffee breaks, 15 or 16 hours is a long unstructured time to fill when you are not participating in the prayer sessions. The other issue is getting enough sleep – I have never been able to sleep during daylight hours, and it is no different here.

At the call to prayer for Maghrib, they normally eat a date and drink a glass of water, then run to the mosque for very short quick prayers. It is then swiftly back home for Ftour (aka Iftar). With no mosque to visit, the eating starts a lot faster, as they only have to go to the end of the room to pray.

This was the Ftour spread for 6 people. Not shown is the inevitable basket of bread. They often start with more sugar in the form of a Spekia (spiced twisted dough fried, dunked in spiced sugar and sprinkled with sesame seeds). The first main item eaten is the soup (Harira – a lentil and tomato soup with chickpeas and vermicelli) in this instance. Traditionally Harira is eaten with a hardboiled egg and more dates. A quirk is that dates are considered very special, and must only be eaten in odd numbers 1, 3 5 or 7. Then the salads and the individual quiches. The tall glasses contain lemon ‘juice’ but really a slightly sweetened lemon smoothie. Then the main course follows, this one was a sort of pasta bake with vegetables and beef.

There is always some form of ‘soup’; Bissara is made mainly from dried white beans; there is a variation on porridge with turmeric, garlic and olive oil, though sometimes there is a thin porridge made with milk; and also a vegetable soup.

During Ramadan there is always a ‘juice’, often a beetroot smoothie, once a cucumber smoothie, sometimes a mixed fruit smoothie. This family thinks oranges and tomatoes are very acid (lemon apparently isn’t), so whilst the rest of Morocco drinks orange juice by the gallon, we get it only occasionally and in small quantities. Outside Ramadan ‘juice’ only appears a couple of times a week.

The small quiches are more often replaced by savoury brewatts (slightly larger than the almond ones, with any filling you can imagine) or occasionally by small slices of a homemade ‘pizza’ that completely lacks tomato sauce (!).

The salads vary a lot. My favourite is a semi-liquid one made from grated carrot, grated fennel, mashed banana and a little orange juice.

The main courses are such as are normally served midday : tagines, stews, fried fish, couscous (Fridays only – Friday is Couscous Day in Morocco), a rice and vegetable dish, pasta or a potato bake (with the potato on the bottom not the top). Can be anything. Yesterday we had a beef and quince tagine, using quinces from the freezer. It was excellent.

The meal ends with mint tea.

It is important not to overindulge at Ftour, as one will not be hungry enough at Sehour to eat enough to last until the next Ftour.

After Tarawih, there is a ‘snack’ of fresh fruit, sometimes with another treat – these were trifles (without any sherry of course). This quantity of melon was devoured by 6 people (2 had already started on the trifles when I took the photo). The watermelon season started just before Ramadan, and they are wonderful.

I was informed at Sehour today, that when Ramadan ends we have a party day for Eid, then we are going to fast again for 6 more days. They are convinced that there are major health benefits to not eating for long periods, and have now found some medical evidence that it is enhanced if it is for at least 35 days. Can’t see it myself, when we overeat in the hours when we are not ‘fasting’.