“There’s a man here with one leg, five women, and thirty-two children,” Sarah Shambe tells me, on the day of Rosh Hashanah, as we walk away from Eid prayers to her two-room home in a suburb of Kampala, Uganda. Sarah spent the morning praying in an open field with thousands of other Ugandan Muslims. Now that the praying is done, she fills me in on the neighbours.
I didn’t know Sarah before about an hour ago, but now she’s invited me to her home. This is after prayers where small kids ate ice cream in shades of bright pink and pastel orange, and music played in the background while friends and relatives greeted each other, and everyone wore their best clothes for Eid, and people prayed in a clearing under the clouds in front of the Kampala skyline.
This is how I spend my Rosh Hashanah in Africa: observing Eid.
Back at Sarah’s house, her sister visiting from Nairobi makes a sweet called “Tambi.” She deep-fries vermicelli noodles, adds sugar, vanilla, and cardamom, and then boils the concoction. It makes me think of kugel. I drink a sticky sweet fruit soda called Mirinda. In color and taste and everything but the syrupy residue of low alcohol content, it makes me think of Manishevitz.
This is my second Rosh Hashanah in Africa. Last year, I visited a group of Ugandans who practice Judaism. This year, I am working, taking photos of Eid.
A good friend in New York writes me, “I now understand that we have holidays mostly for their rituals and to try to keep track of time passing, which is almost impossible.” I miss spending Rosh Hashanah with her, and realize the truth in this sentiment: last year in one place, this year in another, next in another still. I can’t think of where I was precisely for most of most months in years past, but I can think of Rosh Hashanah with her, precisely and with details about spinach salads with beets and honey cakes, a few times in northern California, a few times in Southern California, a few times in New York.
Sarah shows me photos of her family, children who have moved away, Eid in years past. Postcards of her hero, Elvis Presley. Her time passing, the Elvis postcard with weathered corners. Relatives who have married, relatives who have divorced, relatives around the corner, and relatives who have moved far away.
The next day, Wednesday, some Jewish friends in Kampala have a small Rosh Hashanah dinner at their place. It is no longer erev Rosh Hashanah, but is it is the first time we all could manage to sit together. We eat chicken roasted in banana leaves and talk about home and about spirituality, briefly, and at length about where to purchase cheese in Kampala. Our host has picked lovely tropical flowers from her garden: birds of paradise, pink flowers so waxy and alive they look fake, and delicate lacy white blooms bordering them. We light candles and retrieve prayers from the corners of our minds dedicated to Hebrew School Knowledge.
On Rosh Hashanah, I reflect on my own Jewish identity as white American girl in Africa, celebrating Eid, spending the day with Sarah and her quirky family instead of my own quirky family.
On the day after Rosh Hashanah, I am with friends, marking the passing of time the best we can: with banana leaves and tropical flowers.
More photos of Eid in Kampala.
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