No time to eat, drink or be merry

Last year, Christmas came just before the end of Ramadan. The souk in Damascus was filled with tinkling toys, garlands of tinsel and glittering Christmas decorations.

There were smart shirts and bow ties for the little boys and, for the little girls, bonnets, red velvet coats and white fur muffs that made them look like characters from Dickensian London.

I bought a tiny mechanical bird in a cage that lit up and chirruped when you clapped your hands. Magic - and just the thing to lift the spirits as the rigours of Ramadan were kicking in.

With prohibitions on eating and drinking during daylight hours, people tend to get tired during Ramadan. Schools close earlier, people stay in bed later and business is so slack that some shops shut down altogether.

The gas ring in the little hotel where I was living was rarely lit, so I did without my morning cup of tea. The falafel stall where I got my daily ready-to-go meal remained closed, so I did without lunch. In the end, it was easier to fast alongside everyone else.

It's good for your soul, I told myself when hunger gnawed at my stomach. In any case, eating and drinking in the presence of people who are fasting somehow detracts from the enjoyment. Ahmed, working in the hotel to pay his student fees, was stressed out. Not being able to smoke all day was a trial.

One morning, I came upon Salih, the Kurdish gofer, staring sadly at a glass of water. A Syrian friend, brought up in the Islamic tradition but no longer practising, told me she ate and drank during Ramadan, but never in public.

Twice I mooched off to the Cham Palace Hotel (five stars to my one) and ordered an illicit cheese sandwich at lunchtime. One weekend, I visited friends in Selemiyyah, a town near Aleppo that houses the headquarters of the Ismaili Muslim sect.

Ismailis are a cheerful lot of Muslims. The women attend mosque alongside the men, do not cover their hair and are encouraged to get educations. Ismailis drink wine and have a different attitude to Ramadan: they don't observe it. It was a delicious break from my self-imposed regime of denial.

Syria is a secular state, but with a small Christian population, which explains why, in Damascus, there were Christmas trees in the shops, cut-out reindeers in the windows and taped carols trilling over the loudspeakers. Children posed for photographs with Santa.

But it was only after Christmas Day that an air of expectation developed. All those restrictions - no smoking, no eating, no drinking, no fornicating, even - were about to come to an end.

Then, one afternoon, I heard a dull boom, saw a flash of light and a puff of dark smoke in the blue sky: the city's cannon was announcing the end of Ramadan. Eid ul-Fitr, the feast of the breaking of the fast, was about to begin. Next day, the streets were packed with families loaded with gifts, going to visit grandparents. Carousels and fairground swings filled the streets, carnival music blared out. Teenage girls walked arm in arm in their new clothes, boys roamed the streets in packs.

The Eid ul-Fitr partying went on for three days. In the hotel, Ahmed resumed his 20-a-day habit and Salih smiled again. We had all survived Ramadan, each in our own way.

The lunar calendar begins 10 days earlier each year. This year, Eid ul-Fitr ends today