Quarter 4: Week 4, Post A

I'm continuing to love A Thousand Splendid Suns, and as I read I notice more and more cultural differences in Mariam and Laila's world. One example of this is the food people eat in Afghanistan. Rice seems to be a staple item, eaten at most meals, if not all. Some of the other dishes that have been mentioned by Mariam include sabzi, borani, aushak, lamb, daal, and okra qurma. All of these dishes are completely unfamiliar to me, with the exceptions of rice and lamb of course. Still, these strange dishes show how important food is to our culture and how much we notice the different types of food around the world.

Another cultural difference I noticed this week was the sense of religious community in Kabul. During Ramadan, a Muslim holiday, the entire city nearly shuts down. As Mariam observes, "...a drowsy hush overtook Kabul. Traffic became languid, scant, even quiet. Shops emptied. Restaurants turned off their lights, closed their doors" (71). Then, at the end of Ramadan, or Eid, the opposite occurs. Just as the city became quiet and empty during the Ramadan fasting time, the entire city comes together to feast and be joyful. The sense of community is just as strong, instead it's focused on celebration instead of prayer and reflection. Mariam notes the differences: "Rasheed and she took to the streets. Mariam had never walked amid such livliness...kids romped about and compared Eid gifts. Maraim saw festive lanterns hanging from shop windows, heard music blaring from loudspeakers" (73).

Here in the United States, it would be rare to find an occurrence similar to this one in Afghanistan. There is such diversity of religion here that it would be extremely unlikely for an entire city, especially one as large and important here as Kabul is in Afghanistan, to all partake in the same religious rituals. Although cities do have celebrations and parades, they aren't centered around religion. The fact that the lives of Mariam and her fellow Kabul residents are so focused on religion is very different from most people in the U.S. It would be impossible to shut down an entire city for days at a time, all because of one single religious holiday. People here work on all holidays-Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Easter, Passover...there is never a time when everyone gets to take off and celebrate together as a community.