Fasting Child

Also published in DAILY TRUST

In the spirit of Ramadan I suppose that the esteemed readers of this column may welcome a break from discussing heavy issues in favour of some light, though equally important, ones. In any case, in Ramadan we are supposed to focus more on spiritualities and other activities related to the month, and of course some light issues won’t distract anyway.
 

After all, unfortunately, almost all such heavy issues in Nigerian context are regret-inducing in nature for obvious reasons, which a fasting person may need to ignore at least for sometime.

Fasting child is the subject of today’s piece, because while he grows and looks forward to adulthood life, his natural curiosity to explore as many things as possible and acquire as much experience as possible motivates him to keep trying a lot of things. And of course fasting is one of such important milestones in the course of his mental and moral growth. After all, we have all passed through such interesting stage in the course of our growth into adulthood.

Despite necessarily involving the stress of abstinence from food and drink for quite long hours, an average Muslim child is eager to observe his first fasting experience before reaching ten years of age – as a matter of fact some children start fasting at the age of seven. Their premature eagerness to fast reflects their general natural tendency to emulate adults and older children.

Moreover, the encouragement a child receives from his family members and the community, which also includes material incentives, encourages him to engage in fasting in as many days as he can at a given month of Ramadan.  Likewise, peer pressure challenges him to sometimes force himself to compete with his peers and avoid the embarrassment associated with recording fewer fasting days particularly compared to those younger than him.

Incidentally, however, sometimes, and unknown to his family members particularly his parents, a child “cheats” by drinking or eating something during the day and pretends otherwise in order to avoid the embarrassment. 

However, the funny irony that actually underscores his sheer childishness is that, though he realizes that eating or drinking vitiates fasting altogether, he hides somewhere, e.g. in a bathroom, to drink water, or somewhere to hastily swallow something, which is in most cases too insignificant to quench his raging hunger, yet endures unnecessarily for the rest of the remaining hours wallowing in hunger and thirst, which he believes is already in vain.

Interestingly enough, I can recall some few instances of my guilt in this regard. And I believe as this revelation perhaps stimulates you to smile, you might actually remember an instance or instances when you also “cheated” that way.

Anyway, for obvious reasons a child is not expected to ponder over the spirituality and other philosophical concepts associated with fasting. After all, being a minor, he does not have, and indeed can’t incur, any sin for that matter, and that the rewards he earns from doing the right things including fasting go to his parents.

This explains why while adults are expected to alleviate the stress of hunger and thirst by engaging in different worship or rituals, e.g. dedication to Qur’anic recitation, prayers etc, a child tends to engage in largely funny pastimes in the daytime to reduce the stress.

After all, he is already attitudinally conditioned by a common tradition that humorously (and at least in his own childish world) describes people’s changing states of emotion towards fasting over its different stages i.e. beginning, middle and the end of the month of Ramadan.

The proverb says “goma ta marmari, goma ta wuya, goma ta dokin sallah”, which literally means first ten days of enthusiasm, second ten days of  boredom and last ten days of looking forward to Eid.

In essence it means that the first ten days of fasting are less stressful due to high enthusiasm with which Ramadan is greeted. However, as the second ten days begin, such enthusiasm tends to wind down hence fasting during these days is relatively stressful, while the last ten days inspire excitement as people look forward to Eid festivities, which substantially mitigates the stress of fasting.

Incidentally, adults may also demonstrate the same emotions through their subconscious actions and reactions. After all, there is indeed physical stress in fasting and the worship rituals associated with it, which however a fasting person overcomes according to the extent of his ability to imbibe the values of piety and the spirit of spirituality.

Anyway, as the Eid approaches, a child looks forward to at least one new set of dress to be provided by his father or guardian, as he also looks forward to enjoying other related festivities. Incidentally, I really pity the average Nigerian child, for he hardly, if at all, enjoys the fun of being a child in Nigeria in the first place much less enjoying Eid celebrations.

It is a pity that he is deprived of the quality life befitting his needs, expectations and indeed his innocence. I often sympathise with him whenever I behold how his counterpart elsewhere, e.g. where I am based, seems to be literally oblivious of the existence of many of such issues he suffers from.

It is also a pity that while an average child in Nigeria rejoices with excitement over whatever little things he gets or fun he enjoys, his counterpart elsewhere, and having taken quality life for granted, has literally exhausted a great deal of fun and even indulgence, which explains why even Eid festivities in his country, which are incidentally very elaborate and glamorous, don’t seem to excite him much, for he wallows in enjoyment all the time.

Unfortunately, a Nigerian-based friend, who, having lived abroad hence realised how much Nigerians have been short changed by their rulers, phoned me up on an Eid day from Potiskum in Yobe State shortly after concluding the Eid prayer, and sympathetically commented on the people’s appearances and dresses, which were presumably their best. Yet, according to him, they nonetheless still looked as though they were actually returning back from work in their farms.