Day 19: The Balance of Hours

Wednesday, July 10

Cultural Adventures: Ramadan Edition

Part 2: Time

To continue our Ramadan saga, today we shall talk about the time changes. I'm not necessarily referring to the daylights savings thing that happened a few days ago, although that did come into effect because of Ramadan. What I'm referring to is a complete life-overhaul.

As you can imagine, because the eating schedule has changed, now everyone is up all night and they sleep all the day.

"I don't get it."

Now, that doesn't seem like that would affect us non-fasters that much. Very not true. In a country where 99.9% of people practice Ramadan, you are very much affected as a non-faster. (That is not a made up statistic, btw. This is an Islamic country.)

So yeah. Everything changes.

"Dogs and cats. Living together. Mass hysteria!"

For obvious reasons, stores and restaurants are now closed all day. Sometimes, there are some open in the morning, and sometimes there are some open a couple hours before sunset, but I don't really understand the system. It's not like there's a book on this or something.

Oh, just kidding.

For the most part, it's easiest to assume that everything is closed during the day, partially because it's so hot and people are not about to go walking around all day in the sun and not be able to drink anything afterwards, and also because they're not about to eat anything, and also because they're asleep.

Really, it's a sure bet that everything will be open about two hours after sunset, after everyone's done eating breakfast and it's all dark and unsafe for young American girls to go out alone.

It makes it difficult for those of us not-fasting to not fast. As it is, I fast anyway. From food, that is. I've only been eating in the evenings for the most part this entire stay. But, I can't fast from water, I don't think. Not in this heat. But it must be said that being here and living in desert like conditions like this really makes you admire Muslims and their devotion to their beliefs.  To fast from water all day while the sun is beating down upon you or turning your house into an oven, is truly amazing if you think about it.

Pretty sure nothing much happened on Wednesday, except that we witnessed Ramadan in practice for the first time. We politely made a point not to keep our water bottles on the table during class like usual, because our teachers are fasting.

Iftaar, aka "Breakfast", was at 8pm, and we had soup, some tiny meat and veggie sandwiches, and these sugary things coated in more sugar called "shebakia". 

Looks like this.
 (This picture is from the internet.)

They are nothing but sugar, and therefore very good.