By Famara Fofana
With a tinge of guilt, I pen this piece not because of any failure on my part to fulfill my religious obligation of keeping fast in past Ramadans but because of the intense scrutiny someone like me go through anytime this holy month dawns on us. To cut it short, I have been at the receiving end of so many questions revolving around my plans for a lifelong partner whenever ‘Werri Korr’ is inching closer.
Until this Armageddon era that the world has find itself in, marriage has ever been that aged-old, highly sanctified union between man and woman. And despite having a number of people tying the knot every other day here in The Gambia , the expectation of most people in our deeply traditional and closely knitted society is that a single, fully grown man with the supposed financial muscle should not approach or spend the month of Ramadan languishing in the super bachelor club.
I do know a handful of fellas too whose membership in the much maligned ‘salibaterr’ group subject them to a sense of trepidation as we enter this period of intense worship. One has been reminded time and again both at home and in the work place about his sacred responsibility of taking a wife in the run up to or during the month of Ramadan itself. This is due mainly to the multiple, yet massive benefits that a brand new ‘sohna’ brings to the home at a time when there tends to be a lot of food to be prepared and served. Beware folks in Jarra, this is no time for excesses in terms of the amount of consumables. What a pity it has become to see households throwing left over food when there might be others in need.
Based on anecdotal evidence, it appears the perfect time for most people when it comes to marriages here in Banjul is Ramadan. The frequency of the practice in recent times has led to the coining of the Wolof phrase ‘takama takama’ which translates in English marry me, marry me. In fact, for very stingy or poverty stricken men like me, tyeing the knot in the month known in Pular as ‘Lewru Korka’ comes as that stay of execution moment whereby the man is spared the almighty trouble of having to fulfill all the mindboggling expenses that are now symptomatic of many marriage ceremonies.
Fair deal from an economic sense of the word but personally I would not fall for such a marriage of convenience on the grounds that Ramadan would save me from some perceived astronomical wedding expenditure. I can state here with confidence that even that ‘month-long reprieve’ may not be a lasting saving grace, for out of tradition or for the sake of prestige , very few ladies or their parents may be willing to allow their daughters’ marriages run without doing some sort of programme; traditional, modern or quasi-modern. Such have almost become a rite of passage in the institution that is marriage.
Logic and received wisdom suggest that fasting is a much easier job for a married man than a celebatarian due to obvious reasons. Take for instance the time and effort needed for one to go buy condiments at the market not to mention the chores involved in their processing .The fast breaking meal alone is no easy affair for large families especially. The painstaking steps that go with the preparation of the many saliva inducing delicacies involved in both the ‘ndogu’ and the pre-dawn Ramadan dish ‘heda’ can prove a handful for even Star Boy, my old bloke who is not showing any signs of quitting the single men’s club. His insistence has been that his culinary skills can only be matched by few women and that marriage like any other facet of life falls within predestination. ‘It shall happen when the time comeths’, he would maintain.
Long before I had also taken my partner in life, I had faced not once questions like ‘ah boy nakala ? Ramadan is here, Doh def dara bi yon’, ‘ndongo nyaadilong’. These are concerns borne out of goodwill but for goodness sake, the prospect of ‘fasseh ma fasseh ma’ just after the holy month of Ramadan is even more of a concern.Long may we see more of ‘takama takama’s and no ‘fassehma fassehmas’.
RAMADAN KAREEM and May Allah cleanse us of our sins and strengthen us in faith.
