Ramadan starts today in the UAE. It is always during the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar and it is a time when Muslims worldwide abstain from food, drink and other physical needs during daylight hours. It is a holy month of worship for Muslims and a time for them to purify the soul, refocus one's relationship with Allah and practice self-sacrifice and charity. Fasting is one of the five pillars of Islam which are central duties required of all Muslims regardless of where they live.
So before the sun rises, the families will have Suhoor. This is their morning meal before the fasting begins. Then to end their fast in the evening (which will be around 7:10pm to start) then have the Iftar. Your days fasting is broken with prayer and then the Iftar meal which many have with their big families. Many people will eat a date when the call to prayer goes off then go pray. Then they have their big meal.
A lot of food is consumed during Ramadan ---despite the fact that fasting happens all day long. The hours of life will change. People will stay up extremely late, sleep in or take a long nap after work until they can eat dinner. It's extremely hot and tiring on a normal day--but without water, it would be pretty hard. After the Iftar, people stay up until all hours of the night. Malls are open until midnight or later.
Look at these pictures from the grocery store. There are more in these packages than you get at Costco or Sam's Club. Who needs this many mini-donut mixes?! And Tang. I love that stuff!
Labor law says that employees should only work 6 hour days during Ramadan. Usually we work the normal work day but then the law requires that our work pay us extra for working a normal work day during Ramadan (even if we aren't Muslim). So starting tomorrow, we are working Ramadan Hours!! Woop woop!
Dates are a big thing here. There are date palms EVERYWHERE. Now is the season for dates. They are coming out now and everybody serves them to you fresh off of their tree when you visit homes. At the grocery store they had many different kinds that you could purchase the other day. There are 100's of different kinds of dates.
I'll update more on Ramadan as we go. Hopefully we'll get invited for an Iftar meal to a friends home.
1 comment:
Those dates don't look like the dates in packages we get here..do you buy a strand of them..or by the pound? Do they taste the same as ours here? Love the guest house redo!
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