October 24, Tuesday

Today was Korite in my neighborhood. The holiday was celebrated yesterday on the other side of town, where they began the Ramadan fast a day before we did. Korite is a very happy occasion; it marks the return to eating and drinking during the day. Besides the general happy air and huge, huge meals, people celebrate a little like Halloween. Everyone, self included, donned their best outfit and set to the street. Instead of, "trick or treat," children and some joking adults ask everyone to give them something that sounds like, "salad bowl." People carry extra small change for this purpose.

In the evening my sister and I sat outside our compound facing the sandy road as if we were a pair of princesses. We sipped cold Orange Fanta as an endless procession of girls and women in their finest clothing and with their hair done up for the occasion paraded past. A couple men came by, but they were all wearing jeans or other casual clothing. Everyone stopped to greet us and ask for our salad bowls. My sister and I discussed the fashions and hairdos that came before us. To me it was a holiday of food, trick or treating, and girliness.