Ramadan

Pronounced ‘RamaDAN”, we are into the second week now. Some stores and most offices have shorter hours, some restaurants don’t serve alcohol this month, and many offer special “iftar” (fast-breaking, evening) multi-course meals. Most schools delayed their starting days this year to October 6th, after Ramadan.

My classmate and I were commiserating with our Arabic teacher about how hard it must be for her to go without eating and drinking all day. But she said, no, it wasn’t hard, it was a special, magical kind of time and that she loves Ramadan. It is a spiritual time, where one feels closer to God, and when good things you have done through the year may come back to you. People make donations to charity, and surprising and wonderful things happen. She told us about her cousin, who’d had her purse taken from her car. Nothing happened the first day after, but the second day one relative gave her a new wallet, another new makeup, and her boss gave her twice the amount of money that had been in the purse. The teacher gave someone some money and two days later found the exact amount she had given in a place she had forgotten she had it. A couple of days ago a chef in the south opened an oyster and found 24 pearls inside.

Tom says he notices that people he work with who are usually very outgoing but who are fasting this month are quite subdued, and the whole air around the school is kind of quiet. Once Ramadan is over, they bust out and things get back to normal.

One person told me that if you are taking medicine you are exempt from fasting. Diabetics on insulin are exempt, but not other diabetics. Some elementary school children even fast. My teacher told me that women having their period don’t have to fast, but have to make up the days they didn’t fast during Ramadan over the next year. Seems like that would be even harder, being the only one around with no energy or sleep. (You can’t eat or drink from sunup to sundown, so people get up at 4 am to eat.) Our coffee guy won't drink coffee in public--he is not fasting but he doesn't want the whole world to know it.

Tom gets three days off for Eid al Fatr (sp?), the end of Ramadan. We are planning to go to an area of the country we haven't seen before, and will be renting a car to get there. Car rental fees go up for Eid...

Ramadan gets almost a month earlier every year. Next year it will be in the height of summer’s long, hot days.