Another Iftar View

I took this picture from our balcony. It's Iftar to go... Last week there was a huge Iftar gathering in the parking lot outside our apartment building. We watched as they served all the places and then everyone waited until the countdown was over at approximately 6:37 p.m. and then they began to eat.
We also had the chance to eat Iftar with our across the hall university girl neighbors this weekend. Well...actually they wanted us to eat dinner with them on Saturday night, but they didn't catch us in time. Our doorbell rang at about... yeah, it was about 11:30p.m. I answered the wooden door knowing they could not see me in my p.j.'s while brushing my teeth. I had already dragged Melissa out of bed because I was a bit nervous about who it could be. They were persistent door ringers. When I heard the voices of our across the hall neighbors, I opened our outside door to find them all standing there. They invited us over to eat dinner, right then. As we're both standing there in our p.j.'s, I thought about it and then just answered for the both of us and said, 'no, tonight, we really just can't'. (I am still brushing my teeth, at the door, at this point.) They weren't too disappointed. They invited us over for the next night. Perfect. Well, they said 7 o'clock. You already read above that Iftar was at 6:37 last Friday night and it only gets earlier as the sun sets earlier. I lapsed into a moment of definitely culturally insensitivity when they rang our doorbell the next night at 6:30p.m. (I thought a bit early which is very much unlike Turks) (they appeared very hungry--one can learn to discern these things after a few weeks living in the middle of Ramazan) to tell us they were waiting for us. Well, I of course told her that they had told us 7:00 and we'd be there at 7:00 because we had a cake in the oven. Still hungry, she looked at me a bit confused. Did I know where I was living? You can set your watch by Iftar here. I told her again, we would be there very very shortly...the cake was not finished. Why did we have to bake a cake she asked. Well, we were only trying to be hospitable, I thought...not realizing our only duty was to be on time and we were about to not fulfill that duty. Then, Melissa remembered that it was Iftar time and I embarrassedly scrambled to get my shoes on, shouting to Melissa to turn the oven off (unbaked cake still inside, mind you) and we ran across the hall to see that the meal was laid out and we'd almost missed our window to do the most respectful thing you can do at an Iftar meal...show up on time so your hosts can eat! We had a good meal which we ate on the floor on newspaper. What do you expect? They're college girls...they don't have much furniture!
Afterwards, we had a unique opportunity to peer into the culture that we're living in a bit further, that I don't think I'll ever forget. They all laid their prayer rugs down with their backs facing us. Then they each began to do their evening prayers separately. They had all washed before they began and then began the routine of the movements that are involved in the bowing. After that, one of them led the prayers in what I assume was Arabic. It wasn't Turkish. It sounded something like a chant. You can only imagine that I did quite a bit of my own praying during this time. They gave us an English Koran before we left which led to some good discussion. Very eager to share with us, they are. It's going to be an interesting development of friendships, but I know they've been put in our path for a reason.