Shortly after sunset, Hassana Samassekou eats a quick slice of pizza Wednesday at Kansas University's McCollum Hall before heading to his physics test. The fasting rules of Ramadan can be challenging for students in the residence halls, where Ekdahl Dining Commons closes at 8 p.m.

Hassana Samassekou packs in a few more minutes of studying physics Wednesday at McCollum Hal before heading to a test. At his side sits a box of pizza which he won't touch until the sun goes down.

Hassana Samassekou is living some kids’ dream – eating pizza every day. Some days, it’s all he has. Cheese, sauce and doughy goodness morning and night for the past three weeks.

But for him, it’s not the luxury of a childhood dream come true. It’s pretty much a necessity.

“It kind of sucks,” he says, laughing.

Samassekou, a Kansas University sophomore from Mali, is a Muslim. Since Sept. 1, he has been observing Ramadan – a holy month of fasting. Each day he must eat before sun-up and cannot break his fast until the sun goes down. Each year, the month of Ramadan occurs in the ninth month of the lunar calendar. This year, it happens to fall in line with the ninth month of the Gregorian calendar, the standard calendar used in much of the world. The month is meant to be a time of reflection and refocusing and is marked by fasting, prayer and charity. The month ends with the festival of Eid al-Fitr.

The fast is hard enough when the physics major has to walk around in 80-degree heat or do his math homework. But things don’t get any easier when you throw in the fact that he doesn’t have a car, and Daisy Hill’s main dining hall, the Ekdahl Dining Commons (or Mrs. E’s), closes at 8 p.m. – cutting it quite close to Samassekou’s fast-breaking time of sundown, about 7:30 p.m. these days.

So Samassekou is doing what’s easiest for him. He changed his meal plan to shift his money from dining hall meals to KU Cuisine Cash, which he can use in ordering pizza from Domino’s Pizza, 832 Iowa.

For Muslim students who observe Ramadan, dorm life can pose a bit of a challenge, in addition to the trial of a month of fasting.

First, there is getting up to eat in the morning before sunrise – difficult for both the student and his or her roommate, who may not appreciate an alarm going off in the pitch black of the early morning. That’s especially true this year, since Ramadan falls early in the first semester, when roommates are still adjusting to each other.

“I would just go into the study room so I wouldn’t wake up my roommate, because both years I didn’t have a Muslim roommate, so sometimes they’d wake up,” says Garrett Fugate, a St. Louis junior and Muslim who spent his first two years at KU living in Hashinger Hall. “I think the thing was waking him up accidentally at 5:30 in the morning … probably got on his nerves, but he was respectful of my beliefs and everything. He was a really good roommate.”

These days Fugate lives in a house off campus with other Muslim men. He says that while getting up early isn’t easy, it’s certainly easier as a group.

“I live in a house with some guys. We’re all Muslim, so we … help each other with fasting. We wake each other up and we eat leftovers every morning,” Fugate says. “Yeah, definitely, it’s much easier.”

Then there is the big question of food. When you have regular access to a car, as Fugate did, the question becomes easier to answer. When you don’t, like Samassekou, it can mean limited choices.

“I was really worried about it,” Samassekou says of food and Ramadan when he first arrived on campus last fall. “It’s like a religious point of view. I have to deal with it, so that’s what I do.”

Samassekou does have other options. He could go to the Islamic Center of Lawrence, 1917 Naismith Drive, to partake in meals with other Muslim men. That’s what Fugate did during his dorm life, and still does now.

“Some mosques only do it once a week, but we’re pretty lucky here because they do it every night. People take turns cooking, you get some pretty cool food. One night maybe an Indian Muslim might be cooking, you might get some Indian spices like curry and all that, or somebody from Saudi Arabia might cook that night, you get different foods every night,” Fugate says. “The thing is spending time with your Muslim brothers, that’s always nice.”

Or Samassekou could make arrangements with Mrs. E’s or use his meals at The Studio, KU dining service’s carry-out meal place, and the recommended option of Sheryl Kidwell, assistant director of residential dining. It stays open until midnight and has sandwiches for grab-and-go meals.

But Samassekou says he goes for convenience and quickness rather than variety.

“I have less meals, but I have more money on my KU Cuisine Cash that I can use. I can also use it at the Studio which is by the dorms, or order food, but that’s what I end up doing because I’m too lazy to walk,” he says, adding.

He adds he doesn’t go to the mosque for meals because, “I’m going to kill and hour or two at the mosque. … I don’t have time for that. I have to study.”

Reflection and focus

Amazingly, studying is something Samassekou finds easier during Ramadan.

“Usually I do my homework during the night, during the day I usually just read, I don’t do homework, or just hang out with friends, but right now, it’s only school,” Samassekou says. “With Ramadan, I focus more and study more. If I have my math homework, it takes forever, and I look at my watch and I’m like, ‘Oh, it’s 7, almost like time to break my fast.'”

Fugate says he has had a much harder time doing school work, but he says it’s just a part of Ramadan, which is meant to be a time when Muslims focus on God and purify their souls.

“It’s hard as a student, but it’s just part of the fasting, you do slow down your routine and you focus more on reading the Koran and you kind of refocus on what is important in life,” Fugate says. “It’s a time of reflection too, the fasting encourages it.”