Ramadan

Last year a few days before Ramadan began, my  friend Aziza from the Zanzibar Ministry of Finance  took me shopping for a baibui, the traditional black robe Muslim women wear in public, especially during Ramadan, when discretion and modesty prevail. As an extremely independent and outspoken American woman, I couldn’t imagine myself dressed so self-effacingly; I disdained the idea that women were meant to suffer because men didn’t have any self control. (Let the men encase themselves in black poly-blend if they can’t behave.) Nor could I fathom how I would survive the heat and humidity of the equatorial islands covered head to toe in black. But I had enormous respect and affection for the people I was working with – Aziza and her colleagues at MoFEA and the brilliant, generous and dedicated people from the Public Health Laboratory. And if there was a way to show my respect for them and feel less conspicuous as an outsider, I was more than willing.

As it turned out, I rather liked wearing the baibui in public – the graceful flutter, the way it hid a multitude of sins. But the attention that came with my new Zanzibari style was unexpected. I caused quite a stir at the Ministry of Finance;  even more so in Pemba. From the moment I wafted off the plane in Pemba, I was treated differently. The baggage handlers practically leapt across the metal shelf between us to set my suitcase on the ground for me. I was not just the nice mzungu do-gooder; I was an eligible woman. A possibility.

But no one was more thrilled than Hasina, my housekeeper and guide. Hasina had a runway model’s sense of style; in different circumstances – in my New York world – she would have been a powerhouse, a macher. She was beautiful, smart, stylish, bold – and knew and talked with absolutely everyone on the island. Soon she was fielding marriage offers for me.

Ramadan 2010, with all the anti-Muslim rhetoric, all the hubub about the proposed Islamic community center in the former Burlington Coat Factory building near the World Trade Center, made me want to don my baibui again, just to protest the bigotry and hypocrisy. The world is very small; we are all neighbors.