Photo by: AFP

"Out of respect for the environment I work in, I feel I need to try to integrate myself" during Ramadan, said 37-year-old UN peacekeeper Sylvia Monika Wyszomirska, who has been stationed in Lebanon for four months. "And since my contingent is deployed in a Muslim area, I have decided to wear the hijab," the Muslim veil, over military fatigues, the mother of a little girl told AFP. Wyszomirska chose a veil in the same light shade of blue used for the berets worn by members of the 13,000-strong United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), which keeps the peace along the tense Lebanon-Israel border.

A native of Krakow, Wyszomirska works as a translator for the 200-member Polish contingent of UNIFIL, and her job brings her into direct contact with the people who live in Shiite-majority villages across the Marjayoun region. Her deployment to southern Lebanon is not Wyszomirska's first encounter with Muslim tradition. She has also been to Kuwait and Iraq and worked in Syria as well to perfect her Arabic. "When I was studying Middle Eastern languages at Jagiellonski university back home we also learned about the customs, traditions, history and geography of the countries we might end up working in -- places like Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Kuwait," she said. Wyszomirska's decision to wear the veil during Ramadan has helped to break the ice with local villagers, both for her personally and for her colleagues in the Polish contingent.