On taking the train at night during Ramadan

On Wednesday at 8am (Central Standard Time), T and I left the small town in Nebraska where we had spent most of our time the past five weeks and began our two day journey back to Ifrane, Morocco.

At 6:45pm (Greenwich Mean Time) on Thursday, we were sitting on the train from Casablanca to Meknes and were on (what we hoped would be only) the second to last leg of our travel (we would still need to get a taxi from Meknes to Ifrane).

There were, for once, very few passengers on the train. It's not much fun to travel during Ramadan, the holy month during which healthy adults are forbidden religiously, culturally, and legally from eating, drinking, or smoking from sun up to sun down. The few passengers in our train car looked tired, and most of them sat quietly, watching the sun go down. Many of them had their bottles of water, their dates, and their bagged breakfasts (for this would be their first meal of the day) sitting in front of them, ready to be eaten the minute the sun slipped below the horizon.

Soon everyone began to eat quietly, including T and me. We hadn't been engaging in a strict fast, but had been experiencing the de facto fast that often comes along with traveling. After a few minutes, a man came along with a cart and handed out small packages of dates to everyone--even to T and me. It was touching and marked the first moment for many days when I didn't feel apprehensive and even a bit depressed about returning to Morocco.