Ramadan for Non Muslims
I am repeating this post from September 13, 2007 because it found so much interest among my non-Muslim friends. We are all so ignorant of one another’s customs, why we do what we do and why we believe what we believe. There is a blessing that comes with learning more about one another – that blessing, for me, is that when I learn about other, my own life is illuminated.
(I didn’t take this photo; it is from TourEgypt.net. If you want to see an astonishing variety of Ramadan lanterns/ fanous, Google “Image Ramadan lanterns” and you will find pages of them! I didn’t want to lift someone else’s photo from Flicker or Picasa (although people do that to me all the time!) but the variety is amazing.)
Ramadan will start soon; it means that the very thinnest of crescent moons was sighted by official astronomers, and the lunar month of Ramadan might begin. You might think it odd that people wait, with eager anticipation, for a month of daytime fasting, but the Muslims do – they wait for it eagerly.
A friend explained to me that it is a time of purification, when your prayers and supplications are doubly powerful, and when God takes extra consideration of the good that you do and the intentions of your heart. It is also a time when the devil cannot be present, so if you are tempted, it is coming from your own heart, and you battle against the temptations of your own heart. Forgiveness flows in this month, and blessings, too.
We have similar beliefs – think about it. Our holy people fast when asking a particular boon of God. We try to keep ourselves particularly holy at certain times of the year.
In Muslim countries, the state supports Ramadan, so things are a little different. Schools start later. Offices are open fewer hours. The two most dangerous times of the day are the times when schools dismiss and parents are picking up kids, and just before sunset, as everyone rushes to be home for the breaking of the fast, which occurs as the sun goes down. In olden days, there was a cannon that everyone in the town could hear, that signalled the end of the fast. There may still be a cannon today – in Doha there was, and we could hear it, but if there is a cannon in Kuwait, we are too far away, and can’t hear it.
When the fast is broken, traditionally after the evening prayer, you take two or three dates, and water or special milk drink, a meal which helps restore normal blood sugar levels and takes the edge off the fast. Shortly, you will eat a larger meal, full of special dishes eaten only during Ramadan. Families visit one another, and you will see maids carrying covered dishes to sisters houses and friends houses – everyone makes a lot of food, and shares it with one another. When we lived in Tunisia, we would get a food delivery maybe once a week – it is a holy thing to share, especially with the poor and we always wondered if we were being shared with as neighbors, or shared with as poor people! I always tried to watch what they particularly liked when they would visit me, so I could sent plates to their houses during Ramadan.
Just before the sun comes up, there is another meal, Suhoor, and for that meal, people usually eat something that will stick to your ribs, and drink extra water, because you will not eat again until the sun goes down. People who can, usually go back to bed after the Suhoor meal and morning prayers. People who can, sleep a lot during the day, during Ramadan. Especially as Ramadan moves into the hotter months, the fasting, especially from water, becomes a heavier responsibility.
And because it is a Muslim state, and to avoid burdening our brothers and sisters who are fasting, even non-Muslims refrain from eating, drinking, touching someone of the opposite sex in public, even your own husband (not having sex in the daytime is also a part of fasting), smoking is forbidden, and if you are in a car accident and you might be at fault, the person might say “I am fasting, I am fasting” which means they cannot argue with you because they are trying to maintain a purity of soul. Even chewing gum is an offense. And these offenses are punishable by a heavy fine – nearly $400 – or a stay in the local jail.
Because I am not Muslim, there may be other things of which I am not aware, and my local readers are welcome to help fill in here. As for me, I find it not such a burden; I like that there is a whole month with a focus on God. You get used to NOT drinking or eating in public during the day, it’s not that difficult. The traffic just before (sunset) Ftoor can be deadly, but during Ftoor, traffic lightens dramatically (as all the Muslims are breaking their fast) and you can get places very quickly! Stores have special foods, restaurants have special offerings, and the feeling in the air is a lot like Christmas. People are joyful!
There were many comments on the original post, and, as usual in the history of Here There and Everywhere, the commenters taught us all more about Ramadan than the original post. If you want to read the original post and comments, you can click HERE.
What a Difference a “D” Makes
AdventureMan called me, laughing, and said “I just have to tell you what just happened to me.”
He was talking with a Kuwaiti woman who said “You speak Arabic amazingly well, except for one little thing – you say the ‘d’ when you should be saying the ‘Dh’.”
It was all he could do not to laugh. Not because of what she had said, but because it reminded him of a conversation we had, repeatedly.
When AdventureMan took Arabic, I took French. We were on our way to Tunis, I had a small baby, and I already spoke a little French. I made arrangements to study half days, and hoped it would be enough. Thanks be to God, together, we did just fine. In Tunis, most Tunisians spoke French and even those who spoke Arabic switched to French for the numbers. (Things are different now; this was many years ago.) The Tunisians called him “That Lebanese guy married to the French woman.” (He is not Lebanese. I am not French. Most Tunisians spoke a Berber dialect, which was not quite the same as Arabic.)
When I finally started formal Arabic classes, years later, I would say things I had learned from my husband and my dear Qatteri teacher would say “No, that is how those Lebanese people say it, not the way we say it.”
When my husband would correct my Arabic, now I could just cooly look at him and say “That is how you Lebanese say it, but we Qatteris say it this way.”
When he would lecture me on Arabic (I can only absorb about one minute of lecture at a time and them my head starts swimming) I would respond with ” ‘Dh’ AdventureMan, ‘Dh’ ” implying that his “Dh” wasn’t hard enough. It would make him laugh every time, totally crack him up. He can’t lecture me when he is laughing.
So here he is on the phone, laughing and laughing, because the Kuwaiti woman told him his Arabic was fine except that his “dh” wasn’t hard enough. God bless you, dear, whoever you are. 🙂
Colors and Localities
One of the things we joke about, AdventureMan and I, when we come back to the Seattle area, is that all the houses are grey. Some might look brown, but it is a very grey brown. Some might look green, but it is a very grey kind of green. Some houses are purely grey – maybe they have white trim, but they are very very grey. An occasional truly brown house sticks out, anything not toned down by grey sticks out. And oh! now and then someone with a Mediterranean soul will build a pink or terra cotta house with a red tile roof and people will say “Oh! Look at that! They must not be from around here!”
Yesterday, I was in one of my most favorite places, Home Depot, wandering around looking at what the contracters are putting in the newest houses.
“High rise toilets!” I exclaimed to AdventureMan, who was on the phone with me. “For people who are older, and don’t have the strength in their legs to lower themselves too far!”
I was looking to see what was available in small bathtubs, because I love a hot bath on a cold day, and I want a deeper, smaller tub in which I can lean back with a good book, not one of these huge tubs that take all day to fill. I was looking at shower apparatus; I am thinking one day I want to go the European way with those wall flash-heaters that give you hot water when you need it and don’t keep heating it all day when you don’t.
And then I saw the carpet samples. I just had to laugh. When we lived in Florida, I loved walking into the model homes, with their seafoam green carpets, or even a mellow shade of tropical pink. Everything looked so welcoming and laid back.
In the Pacific Northwest, people choose from shades of sand. I never knew there could be so much variation on beige, which is somewhere between white and brown:
To those of you who say that sand isn’t as dark as the darkest brown swatches of carpet, I can only say you have never walked along a Pacific Northwest Beach on a dark and stormy day. Believe me, sand can be very very dark.
Hard Times
I noticed it right away, driving home on the Seattle freeway – a significantly reduced number of cars, and NO one is speeding. Seattle has outgrown it’s freeways – even early mornings the roads are packed. Or they were – they aren’t now.
At first, I thought I might be imagining it, but the trip down to the ocean cabin in Oregon and back up and through and into Seattle several times have only driven the point home – there are fewer cars on the road.
The Starbuck’s have fewer customers. This is mid-summer, normally a carefree, free-spending time, but not this summer.
There are also fewer shoppers in the stores – and, in downtown Seattle, many of the shoppers were foreigners, here to take advantage of the bargains provided by the weakened dollar. I have to admit, it’s humbling to be a bargain destination. I know many Kuwaitis headed for the USA this summer, enjoying an improved exchange rate.
Sitting in Barnes and Noble with a friend, we heard a very plummy voice giving directions to friends who were to meet them there.
“We drove through the most amazing rural area,” she trilled, “SO picturesque, you must try to find it, it is called Bothell.”
Bothell picturesque? Bothell rural? Bothell is a bedroom community to Seattle, full of sub-divisions where there used to be farms. I wanted to give her a dirty look, but I remember saying the same things – glowing about the desert and camels or sweet little French villages, and I just figure what goes around comes around and I am just getting a little payback.
It’s also scary seeing how much prices have gone up – eggs! The same problem Kuwait is having – eggs are more expensive. Rice is more expensive. My Mother thinks some merchants are just marking things up because they can, and they can blame it on oil and it’s all just GREED.
I think all this has a lot to do with perception. Right now, people are feeling insecure and are trying not to spend too much money, not knowing what is around the corner. Americans have an irrepressible sends of optimism, and I suspect that a more positive approach will take hold in the next few months. Once it does, markets will rise, people will be spending again . . . and I wonder if the prices will go down, or just keep going up?
Summer Sunday at the Pike Place Market
We have a great favorite tradition – hit the early service, 0800 – what my friend calls “speed church”, the one hour service instead of the longer family services – and then head straight for the Pike Place Market. Things get started there slowly on a summer Sunday morning, and we even found a free parking space – totally amazing.
First stop is breakfast at Campagne. We don’t have reservations, but they find a place for us:
The sun breaks forth and the market is teeming with people by the time we are finishing up:
In the 1970’s, the market was a little run-down and shabby, and many business people wanted to raze it and use the space for office buildings. Seattle residents said “NO!” and instead, the market was revitalized. It is one of the major tourist destinations in the city, and a lively spot every day of the week.
A long time ago, before the big Seattle fire, my family lived just up the street from this market.
Riverside BBQ in Seaside, OR
AdventureMan and I love eating out in Kuwait, and the only thing we really yearn for are: genuine Mexican food, Vietnamese food, and southern (USA) Barbecue. When we come to the US we make sure to sample those three main food groups. And we laugh at ourselves, because when we are in the US, we are always looking for a good Middle Eastern restaurant. 🙂
We all had a yearning for barbecue today, so we stopped by a little pink restaurant by the side of Highway 101 in Seaside that had two smokers outside. The smell was divine.
They had an extensive menu – beef, chicken and pork, and loads of sides – cornbread, baked beans, macaroni and cheese, potato salad, cole slaw – just to name a few. Here were some of the platters:
This was the smoked chicken salad
The Meat Lover's Platter
The Rib dinner
The Rib platter for two with a side of potato salad
The counter where you order
The food was delicious. We ordered way too much – we had no idea how much food would come with each order. We boxed up the rest and brought it home to warm up later when we get hungry again, if ever.
Let’s Go Fly a Kite
There is so much to do!
There is a long walking promenade along the beach, wide enough for bicycles, moms with strollers, people skating, people walking their dogs, and people just walking or jogging.
On the beach, people are swimming, sunning, building magnificent sand castles, fishing, and . . . flying kites.
Some of the kites are purely magnificent. Here is my favorite – a pirate ship!
5 Star Pho
My favorite little restaurant, 5 Star Pho, is totally packed at noon, every table but one is taken, and that one has a reserved sign on it. Fortunately for me, a booth opens up just moments after I arrive. The waitress brings me a hot cup of tea – a welcome treat for a woman who has just escaped the heat of Kuwait to shiver in Seattle – and a menu, but I already know what I want.
This is what I crave while I am living in Kuwait. My friend, Coeurcountry, has improved my life so much by making me a gift of the rice-paper wrappers, and a great recipe, so I CAN make them myself, but oh, 5 Star Pho does it so much better! Even though I am in and out of town, not a daily or even a weekly regular customer, they always remember me. I don’t even have to ask; they bring me extra peanut sauce!
I am sorry, I couldn’t wait. I had to take a bite even before I shot the photo!
Seattle OKs Bag Fee
From the Seattle Post Intelligencer:
City OKs 20-cent fee on plastic, paper bags
Council also outlaws foam food and drink containers
By KATHY MULADY
P-I REPORTER
Move over, baseball caps and T-shirts.
Logo-emblazoned cloth grocery bags could soon become the most popular company freebie in the Puget Sound region.
Seattle became on Monday one of the first major American cities to discourage the use of paper and plastic shopping bags by requiring grocery, drug and convenience stores to charge 20 cents per bag. In a related action, the City Council also banned plastic foam food and drink containers.
Both laws will go into effect Jan. 1.
People can avoid the fees by bringing their own reusable bags when they shop. The city of Seattle will launch a 90-day education effort to help people figure out the best ways to use cloth bags, and remember to take them when they go shopping. The city also plans to provide residents with a couple of free bags.
One of my favorite stores, Trader Joe’s, has been selling reusable bags forever. They now have a display with many sizes and designs to choose from:
I’m really trying hard. I have a friend who is so conscientious about recycling, she always carries her own bags, and her actions have influenced me greatly. She believes even one person makes a difference, and I believe her – I can see that her behavior has already changed mine! I am trying to carry my own reusable bags now, too.
Especially for my Kuwait/Gulf/Middle East readers, I got a big grin when I saw this in the prepared food section:
A ready-to-go lunch, with felafel, hummous, tabouli and a little bit of flat bread.
Please Treat as Urgent and Confidential
My good friend Adamu Attah, head of the FILE DEPARTMENT at the African Development Bank wants to give me money! I am printing his letter, exactly as written, because I am thinking my bank friend really needs some grammar, spelling and spacing review. In any case, I am much too busy these days to collect my 40% of 15.5 million dollars.
But it is summertime, and some people have a lot of time on their hands, and if you want to contact my friend Adamu Attah, here is his address:
adamu_attah1@sify.com
Please. Please. Do not send him any money, not for fees, not for deposits, not for anything. This is another of those hoax spams that some people actually respond to. Please, please, don’t be one of them.
FROM THE DESK OF ADAMU ATTAH
THE HEAD OF FILE DEPARTMENT,
AFRICAN
DEVELOPMENT BANK (ADB)
OUAGADOUGOU BURKINA-FASO WEST
AFRICA.
TREAT AS URGENT AND CONFIDENTIAL.
PLANE CRASH WEB
SITE…http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/859479.stm
(“remittance of $15.5million u.s.a dollars
confidential is the case”)
compliments of the season
2008,
i am (adamu attah),head of file department & debt recovering in
african development bank ouagadougou burkina-faso in west
africa.
first, i must solicit your confidence in this transaction.this
is by
virtue of its nature as being utterly confidential and top
secret.
however after series of petition was recieved by this present
regime from foreign contractors and inability of the african
development bank (adb)to fulfill their obligation for the payment to
its foreign creditors, in conjunction with the council of ministers,
they mandated us to carry out a careful and comprehensive review of all
overdue payments to foreign contractors and to effect payments
immediately.
during the above mentioned process, we discovered an
abandoned sum of us$15.5 m (fifteen million five hundred thousand us
dollars) in an account that belongs to one of our foreign customer who
died along with his entire family in a plane crash that happened in
(monday 31st july 2000).since we got information about his death, we
have been expecting his next of kin to come over and claim his money
because we cannot release it unless some body applies for it as next of
kin or relation to the deceased as indicated in our banking guidelines
and laws but unfortunately we learnt that all his supposed next of kin
or relation died alongside with him at the plane crash leaving nobody
behind for the claim.
it is therefore upon this discovery that i and
other officials in my
department now decided to make this business
proposal to you and release the money to you as the next of kin or
relation to the deceased for safety and subsequent disbursement since
nobody is coming for it and we don’t want this money to go into the bank
treasury as unclaimed bill.
i agree that 40% of this money will be for
you as a foreign partner, in respect to the provision of a foreign
account,and 50% would be for me, while 10% will be for expenses incure
during the transaction. there after i will visit your country for
disbursement according to the percentage indicated.therefore, to enable
the immediate transfer of this fund to you as arranged, you must apply
first to the bank as relation or next of kin of the deceased indicating
your bank name, your bank account number, your private telephone and fax
number for easy and effective communication and location wherein the
money will be remitted.
upon the receipt of your reply, i will send to
you by email the text of the application to fill and send to the bank. i
will not fail to bring to your notice that this transaction is
hitch-free risk and this transaction will only take us 14 banking days
because as a banker, i know what to do and move the fund into your
account without any delay and thatyou should not entertain any atom of
fear as all required arrangement have been made for the transfer.
you
should contact me as soon as you receive this letter so that i will
send you the text of the application to apply to the bank and the data
information of the deceased .
your’s faithfully,
adamu attah
from (adb) ouagadougou burkina-faso.
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