Augustana students find community while exploring Halal markets in town for Ramadan

A group of Augustana University students walked through the Neighborhood Market in Sioux Falls, talking in hushed yet excited tones, as they find foods from their homeland and culture displayed on the shelves in colorful piles lined throughout the store.

Students moved in groups through the Halal market, located on East 12th Street. It was the third grocery store of the day, where they participated in a give and take of cultural sharing, as they realized that a lot of the foods manifested from all of their cultures in different forms and iterations.

The group of students, put together by Sophie Johnson and Hawi Meshessha along with Augustana University’s Interfaith Council, started the journey of touring Halal markets 10:30 a.m. March 9. Their motive was to bring Muslim and other interested students together and create an experience of shopping for Halal foods before the start of Ramadan the next day.

“To have a lot of people be like, ‘Oh this is what I used to have as a child!’ was really exciting,” said Johnson, a Christian student who belongs to the Augustana Student Association (ASA), who worked on executing this trip along with fellow ASA member Meshessha.

This trip, the first of its kind to ever happen at Augustana University, was deemed necessary by student leaders who experienced first-hand or witnessed second-hand how difficult it is for Muslim students to get appropriate food during Ramadan. Halal foods not being available on campus, as well as the lack of accessibility to transportation which would let them easily move around town looking for those foods, make the time of Ramadan particularly difficult for them.

The Islamic festival, which lasts a whole month and will last this year from March 10 to April 8, is a tradition where Muslims perform intense fasting during the day and only break their fast after the sun sets in a meal called the "Iftar meal." The idea is for individuals to refrain from worldly pleasures and shift their complete focus onto their faith and spirituality.

“It was the community, and it was so impactful to see people gather together just to celebrate this one thing, (and) to be so open-minded, so kind to everyone,” Johnson said. “Religious diets make something as mundane as eating to something holy and sacred to you. And I found that in the foods that we bought and the food that we ate, it shows how religious diets are so important and should be important to everybody.”

The group consisted of a total of nine students, out of which six belong to the Islamic faith. They were accompanied by supervisor Jen Dreiske, the person who spearheaded the conversation about the trip as the Interfaith Chaplain along with Johnson and Meshessha.

Johnson said the idea was born out of a piece of information that she had heard during Augustana's introduction week for international students, when they were told that “Halal meat” would be available on campus for Ramadan. However, when this was not put to execution, she asked and was told by administration that they had meant to say “Halal options” instead of “Halal meat,” which basically just meant vegetarian meals.

Through witnessing the experiences of Muslim students around her and learning the meaning and importance of Halal foods, she approached Dreiske with the idea of doing a Halal foods shopping trip in Sioux Falls for Muslim students who do not have access to transportation to do it themselves.

“One of the things I’ve gained from this is, I did not know much about Halal meat options, and I wanted to learn more about it,” Johnson said. “I think it’s easy for a lot of the student body, and just for people in general, to catch up for what works for them and not think about what works for others. And that’s not how we grow, that’s not how we learn. If you don’t have a religious diet, that does not mean that somebody else’s religious diet is less important than yours.”

The Halal shopping trip began with a visit to the Mogadishu Grocery Store, followed by a second stop at Fatu Market & Kitchen and then the Neighborhood Market, where the group made a stop for lunch. After lunch, the trip then continued with visits to the Dar El Salam Market and the Asian market.

At lunch, students sat poring over the menu at the Neighborhood Market, a store which was vandalized in December 2022. The incident, which happened when the owners were cleaning the kitchen after a “routine” Wednesday, led to thousands of dollars of lost inventory as well as damage to register systems, doors, windows and other store items, according to prior Argus Leader reporting.

The market owners also reported a threatening note that was left after the incident by the suspects, which was found in a drilled hole in the wood that said “Don’t reopen. Shut your mouth, it will get worse.” Now, about a year after the vandalism incident, the market is back to normal functioning with a grocery store in the front and a restaurant in the back.

Students enjoyed a variety of foods from the menu from different cultures and cuisines including Liberian, Somalian, Jamaican, Nigerian, Ghanian and Senegalese. The silence at the table was broken by one of the students narrating her grandmother's words that silence on the dining table means the food is great, causing the group to break into laughter.

“Augustana has never held an event like this. When it was my first Ramadan, there wasn’t anything to really highlight,” said Nasteho Abdi, a member of the Interfaith Council and a Muslim student in her third year of celebrating Ramadan at Augustana. “I remember it was hard navigating how I’m supposed to eat in the dining hall, when sunset is long after the dining hall is open. I remember how exhausting it was trying to figure this out while also trying to practice my faith.”

Over the years, Abdi managed to create action plans to make sure she got her Iftar meal from dining services, who would prepare the meal before closing and have it ready for her when she had to break her fast. However, she said the situation was still not completely ideal as a student living in the dorms with only a communal kitchen space to cook, but she expects this year to be easier since she has access to a kitchen in her apartment.

“Coming to a place that doesn’t necessarily recognize your religious holidays is really separating and isolating, and it’s hard to even feel seen,” said Maya Madson, member of the Interfaith Council and a Muslim student who helped Johnson get in touch with Dreiske for the Halal shopping trip. “So, having an event like this, I think it lets the students know that we see you, we recognize your religious beliefs and holidays, and to go out and show them that you are celebrated here in Sioux Falls and at Augustana.”

The group talked about making this a permanent addition to the yearly religious celebrations on campus, so that international students and students of the Islamic faith, who do not feel a sense of community or have access to go to these stores themselves, will have a space to be seen and heard.

“As student leaders on campus, we’re trying to make these celebrations less hidden, make them more mainstream, (and) just bring them to light and celebrate them collectively,” said Madson.

Correction: A previous version of this story used Augustana University's former name. This story has been updated to reflect this change.

This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Augustana students explore Halal markets Sioux Falls for Ramadan