The month of Ramadan began yesterday. This is our 8th Ramadan in the Middle East and after being here this long I assumed that I had talked about it so many times in the past that I would bore people by talking about it again. But someone who has been reading all along asked why the kids had shorter school days, and I realized that it is still a foreign idea/experience for most people. There are even some people who have lived in the Middle East for 10 years that have never experienced Ramadan because it has always fallen during the summer months when they are back at home. But from now on it will affect everyone living here — at least for the next 30 years or so until it works its way back around to the summer months again (it moves 10 days earlier each year).
So, Ramadan and fasting: in Islam, during the month of Ramadan, Muslims are expected to abstain from food, water, and smoking (and sex) during daylight hours. Certain countries deal with this by making it illegal for anyone to participate in those activities in public, Muslim or not. So for the next 29 or 30 days (based on the moon sighting) restaurants shut down during the day, school hours are shortened to 8:30-1:30 and there’s no lunchtime, only a snack break where kids who are fasting can go to a resting room and those who are not go to designated classrooms to get a drink of water or eat a snack they brought from home. Some kids practice fasting in elementary school so even the youngest grades are limited in their eating and drinking times and don’t have a normal lunch period.
In Camille’s class of 22, she said 6 kids are fasting. To accommodate them the teacher turned a classroom closet into a drinking room. If the non-fasting kids need a drink of water, they can go in the closet where their water bottles are and take a sip. Instead of lunch they have a mid-morning “snack break” and the fasting kids go to a different room for 20 minutes while the rest of the kids are eating.
Yes, I know it sounds a bit crazy/difficult. It’s the no water thing that I can’t get behind. Some people, in an attempt to fast as completely as possible, won’t even swallow their own saliva or take medicine by mouth during the day. There are exceptions made for sick people, the elderly, etc, but there is a lot of self-imposed pressure to perform as best as possible so some may decide it’s more holy to adhere to the fast and not take their medicine as that is an even bigger sacrifice. As I heard one person put it, “May Allah accept all our deeds and forgive our sins.”
What we’ve noticed over time is as the holiday moves closer to the school year and has a greater impact on expats and tourism, certain standards have been relaxed. More restaurants are opening during the day (but the windows have to be covered so no one can see people eating from outside), Starbucks is open, but you can only buy coffee to take away and you have to carry it out hidden in a bag. It’s a step up from when Starbucks didn’t open until 6:30 pm, but I don’t love the coffee to go option because the only way to enjoy it is to slip into the bathroom and drink it in a stall or go out to the car and lean over to drink below the level of the windows. That is a feat of acrobatics that usually involves coffee spilling along with consumption.
So we started this Ramadan by escaping — we are currently spending 2 days at Atlantis as part of our annual pilgrimage to meet up with our friends from Oman. Since it’s a resort it’s not quite a public space so there is food and drink flowing freely in the water park and hotel restaurants are open all day.
I’m estimating that 2 Ramadans from now I’ll be able to drink coffee inside Starbucks. Josh thinks that barrier will be broken next year. 2 days down, 27 or 28 more to go.