First Day of Ramazan

Today was the first day of Ramazan (known in many other places as Ramadan), the Muslim month of fasting. As you may know, Turkey is known for not being a Shi'ih Muslim country. The population here is is 98% Sunni Muslim, and the majority of them aren't really practicing. Among the many changes Ataturk made (including changing the script from Arabic to Latin in one fell swoop), the secularisation of the country was among the biggest. This means that Islam is the religion of the majority, yes, but it is not technically an Islamic country, in that there is a separation of religion and government.
After having spent 3 Ramadans in Israel (and 2 Pesachs as well), and having my favourite Arab-Muslim run felafel stands and hummus places closed for a month during ramadan, and not being able to buy bread, pasta and various other non-kosher-for-pesach products for a month, I got used to the idea of the various fasts not only being carried out by the adherents of the religion, but spilling out onto other people as well. It was kinda nice, I thought. I think most of my sympathy for the plight of fasting restaurant workers comes from the fact that in March, during the Baha'i Fast, while I was growing up, I was one of maybe 2 or 3 students in my school of 500 who were fasting at that time, and had to sit there in the lunch quadrangle at the lunch bench with all my friends and fellow students while they ate. I wasn't allowed to not be around the food. I guess it's not hard enough for a 15-year old to not be eating from sunrise to sundown - the added test of sitting there while one's friends try to tempt you into breaking the Fast by waving food in front of your face builds character, I guess.
Anyway, back to Istanbul. So because of the large Muslim population, in theory, the whole city is on the whole Ramazan thing. However, because so many of the people here are not practicing, in reality, all the restaurants are still open, everything is still available, people still smoke absolutely everywhere and it seems to be a lot of Ramazan lip-service... kind of an excuse to have a BIG dinner at sunset....
I met Sema to go to the hotel to check out the sound system and to make sure we would have everyhting we needed for the wedding on Saturday. After our hotel visit, we went for something to eat at a restaurant. The hotel was on a street that was barricaded off and closed to vehicular traffic and marked with a huge arch-shaped sign at the entrance with a name that translates loosely as "Istanbul Ramazan Village". On this street there are lots of shops and restaurants. At 6 p.m., about 50 minutes before sunset, we sat out on the sidewalk in Ramazan village and had a bowl of lentil soup. It seemed a bit weird to me.... but apparently it wasn't.
After that, I was feeling a little bit down about the whole Istanbul Ramazan situation - I mean, shouldn't people be at least trying to support the people who are fasting, and make life easier for them?
So I got on my bus at 6:30 and headed home, feeling a bit disappointed with the first day of Ramazan. While we sat in traffic with the regular irate Istanbul drivers, the call to prayer sounded. The ticket-collecting guy (a strange, redundant job, since right next to him sits the automatic ticket machine that takes your tickets for you - but that will be in another blog) got up and walked around with a package of dates offering one to everyone on the bus. Some took them, some politely declined, me included, because I'm not fasting. But it brought a smile to my face. As I looked around in the bumper to bumper traffic, I saw people in service buses (the private shuttles that take commuters to and from work all over Istanbul) being offered tea, fruit, and sometimes sandwiches. On other city buses, passengers were being offered a variety of things. It made me smile. There's Ramazan! The ticket guy got off the bus a few minutes later with his pack of cigarettes to go get his nicotine fix. The traffic was bad enough that he was able to smoke and walk alongside the bus without a problem, and a couple of other passengers joined him - others who had taken dates.
Anyway, there it was. The first day of Ramazan in Istanbul.