The Worst is Over – Eid Mubarak!
Last night, even early last night, we could hear the fireworks begin – a sure sign that the new crescent moon had been sighted and the long hot Ramadan was over.
Eid Mubarak, my Moslem friends.
I have been congratulating myself for not jet-lagging, but yesterday, after running errands in the hot humid heat of September in Doha, I was lagging, I don’t know if it was climate-lagging, or jet-lagging, but I napped and then I was still having a hard time staying awake until 9 last night. I slept HARD, it felt great. It felt great until about 3:30 this morning, when I could no longer sleep.
Since I no longer have that gorgeous sunrise coming up in front of my house, I decided to walk this morning, and at 90°F/33°C it is about the coolest it will be all day. I walked and walked, relishing the safety of the compound, where at 0400, there is not another soul in evidence until, near the gate, a guard comes out on his bicycle, making the hourly round. I felt so free.
I also felt so tired. Walking in the heat and humidity is hard work. My socks were soaked and my clothes were soaked by the time I finished. I came in, put the coffee on to brew and showered. I know today will also be loony, most stores closed, heavy traffic as people make their Eid calls on friends and family. The thing that gives me a grin – because I truly do not like exercise very much and I only do it because I want to live a long and healthy life – I know the worst part of my day is over (insh’allah!)
Here is a photo from the Peninsula of all the people out last night celebrating the end of Ramadan:
Etiquette of Eid
I found this in today’s Gulf Times but I see that they found it on islamweb.net (if you are an English speaker, be sure to click on English at the top right part of the page so you can understand what you are reading)
Etiquette of Eid
Eids or Festivals are moments of celebration common to all nations. The festivals of non-believing nations are associated with worldly matters such as the birth of a nation or its decline, the appointment or crowning of a ruler, his marriage, or the beginning of a season like spring, and so on. As for Muslims, their festivals (Eids) are associated with their religious rituals. They have only two festivals or Eids: Eid Al-Fitr (Celebration of the end of Ramadan) and Eid Al-Adha (festival of sacrifice).
When the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, came to Madinah and found the people celebrating two days he said: “What are these occasions”? They said: “We used to celebrate them in Jaahiliyya (before the coming of Islam)”. He, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, then said : “Allah has replaced them for you with the two better days (i.e. Eid Al-Fitr and Eid Al-Adha)”. These two festivals which Allah prescribed to the Muslims are part of the rituals of Islam which should be commemorated and the purposes of which should be understood.
Rules Pertaining to Eid:
1. It is forbidden to fast on the day of both Eids, as it is understood from the hadith narrated by Abee Sa’eed that the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, forbade the fasting of the two Eids.
2. It is recommended that both men and women observe Eid prayer in an open field as is clear in the hadith narrated by Um Atiya, may Allah be please with her, who said: “We used to be ordered to come out on the day of Eid and even to bring the virgin girls from their houses and menstruating women so that they might stand behind the men and say takbir along with them and hope for the blessings of that day for purification from sins”. Since menstruating women (who stay away from the prayer area) as well as those who are virgin are commanded to observe Eid prayer, there is no doubt that the men, old and young are even strongly commanded to observe it.
3. Eid prayer should be performed before the khutba of Eid as is confirmed in the hadith narrated by Ibn Amr, Abee Sa’eed, and Ibn Abbas, may Allah be pleased with them.
4. It is recommended that the Imaam makes Takbeer (Allahu Akbar) during the prayer, seven times in the first Raka’at and five in the second. This has been confirmed by the companions of the Salaf (our righteous predecessors).
5. It is recommended that the Imaam recites in the first Raka’at Soorah Al-A’alaa (chapter 87) and Soorah Al-’Ghaashiah (chapter 88) in the second. Other reports also show that the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, used to recite Soorah Qaaf (chapter 50) and Soorah Al-Qamar (chapter 54) as is confirmed in Sahih Muslim.
6. There is no Sunnah prayer either before or after Eid prayer as Ibn Abbas, may Allah, be pleased with him, narrated that whenever the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, went for Eid prayer, he used to pray two Raka’at (of Eid) but nothing before or after them.
Article courtesy: http://www.islamweb.net
Carnage on Karabaa
Running errands today in the heat and humidity gave me a new insight into these last few days of Ramadan. I briefly got annoyed with myself for forgetting to bring water, and then realized ‘oh no!’ I had left the water on purpose so I wouldn’t unthinkingly violate the no-eating/ no-drinking-in-public-during-Ramadan laws. When it is SO hot, and SO humid you sweat! You just ooze moisture! When I got home, I was exhausted. (It might also be a little bit of jet lag) I was so tired, I had to take a nap.
I cannot imagine what it must be like to try to live a semi-normal life and fast during this kind of heat. I cannot imagine how it will be next year. And the year after that. It is brutal.
I knew Karabaa street was going to undergo some changes for the new ‘Heart of Doha’ project, but the reality was shocking. Old landmarks are gone. Just gone.
The Garden Restaurant, where they had the purely vegetarian restaurant on the ground floor and the more elaborate carnivore restaurant upstairs:
This rubble is where the Garden used to be:
When visitors came to Doha, one of the standard stops was always the Yemeni Honey Man (he also sold baskets from the Asiri mountains in Saudi Arabia, gorgeous baskets, in a building I always thought of as the Beehive Building, because of the honey, and also because of the shape of the multiple domes on top of the building:
You can see a tiny remnant of the building in the right corner – all the rest is rubble. All the surrounding buildings are also empty, ready to be demolished:
Here is the parking lot which used to be full – there used to be another restaurant, not a fancy restaurant but a very tasty restaurant called The Welcome – it was torn down, only five years ago, and now the building that replaced it is also being torn down:
All the little shops are just gone, all the little jewelry shops and textile shops, gone:
I wonder how long these old shops will remain?
How it is Meant to Be: Symmetry vs Asymmetry
As I was growing up, I learned asymmetry. I learned rules like “you never put even numbers together, you use three items here and one here” and that you vary items in height. I am guessing it is semi-cultural; there is a lot of Scandinavian influence in my background, and a lot of Japanese influence on the west coast of the USA, where I was raised.
My housekeeper didn’t have my Mom, or my upbringing. I am the boss and she is the housekeeper, right? Shouldn’t I be getting my way?
It’s not like these things are right or wrong, it is a question of style and what seems right to you – and a lot of that is cultural.
When I lived in Africa, my housekeepers would say “it wants to be here” or “it is meant to be there” and at first I laughed, and then somehow the ‘wants to be’ crept into my way of thinking. How can an object WANT to be somewhere? On the other hand, you place it and all of a sudden you know that’s where it ‘wants’ to be.
My current housekeeper likes symmetry. I carefully place objects; she dusts and she puts them where they tell her they want to be. I can tell in a heartbeat when something has been moved; it just doesn’t look right. I can change it back, but it will go back to being symmetrical within a week.
Most of the time, I just let it go. When you have a housekeeper who really cares about her job – and mine has helped me out many times with good ideas for how something can be done better – I just let it go. If I have people coming over and it really matters to me where things are, I can change it for that one occasion if it is really important to me, otherwise – I just accept that placement is a battle I am not going to win. And I really, really like my current housekeeper, so I will let her be the boss of placement.
What about you? Are you a symmetrical or an asymmetrical?
Eid Confusion
After writing that I don’t get a lot of phone calls, my VOIP started ringing. Four times, it was AdventureMan – we always have a lot to talk about. Once, my Mom, who calls just because she can and because the number we got is her area code, so it is like calling next door, and we all like that. Last, one of my friends in Kuwait – we have discovered we can call VOIP to VOIP. It’s like double the trouble – VOIP phones don’t always have the best connection, sometimes they are echo-y, sometimes one person can hear and the other can’t, sometimes you get other people on the conversation with you – so when you talk VOIP to VOIP, you have double the risk of technical difficulties, but still, an cost-per-phonecall that encourages long conversations (if you can hear and understand one another.)
“Has Eid started in Kuwait?” I asked at one point.
“I don’t thing so,” she replied. “I think it starts like Monday or so.”
It’s confusing to me. I know that Ramadan started four weeks ago tomorrow, so it is likely Eid will be 28 days later, like tonight or tomorrow or Sunday. But Kuwait started the Eid holidays on Friday, the official holidays, so that people will have nine full days of Eid celebration. (two weekends and a five day week). I don’t know if it is the same in Qatar.
It is also confusing as to just who gets the Eid holiday. When I lived in Tunis, lo, these many years ago, the entire country got every celebration. Those of us at the Embassy were doubly blessed; we got all the American holidays AND we got all the Tunisian holidays. So did just about everybody; the country shut down. For at least three days, no restaurants were open, no stores were open – you had to know about this in advance and bring in provisions to last until the Eid celebrations were over.
I wonder, did it used to be that way in Qatar? In Kuwait? That everything shut down, at least for the first day of Eid, and often longer?
In Kuwait and in Qatar, occasionally – like the first day of Eid – the stores will be closed a day – some just half a day. So many workers here are non-Muslim that it makes it possible to keep places open without intruding on someone’s celebration of Eid, in fact, I would think being able to go to restaurants and pick up a few items in the stores enhances the Eid experiences. I know most of my friends in Qatar are leaving town, just as I am getting back, beating feet for Europe, for Africa, for the Maldives, celebrating by traveling.
All the same, I am not sure when exactly Eid is expected to start officially, like according to the lunar calendar. Anyone?
T’fadl(i), God Whispers
Arriving back in Doha, it’s Ramadan, and it’s like Christmas. Not the way Christmas is supposed to be, but the way Christmas sometimes brings out the very worst in us. At the grocery store, the very first indication is the parking – I suppose it might be this bad from time to time, but today it felt like everyone was in the ME FIRST mode. The parking lot was congested with guys just sitting and waiting for their riders to come back, and people afraid that the parking spot they had their eye on was going to be taken by someone else. There were moments of gridlock, and impatient honking.
It’s easier for me to handle than for those who are fasting.
Inside the store, the faces are stern and their is an air of desperation. Women are looking for new ways to provide special meals (imagine, having to come up with an entire month of special meals!) and I imagine the budgets are strained right now, especially with the big Eid coming up.
We all know that we are to humble ourselves and to give way to others. We are told to do more than just give way, but to give way willingly, and with grace, with a smile. It’s something our two religions share, the emphasis on humbling oneself to serve the greater good. The meaning of the polite Arabic t’fadl (to a man) or t’fadli (to a woman), it means, literally, you are to be preferred (over/before me). It is my spiritual exercise during Ramadan, when everyone else is pushing and shoving and grabbing and taking priority, that I am relishing deferring, elaborate politeness, and giving the hand sign for patience (palm up, fingers together, thumb on middle finger, pushing upward) to those who are honking at me while I wait for someone to back out of the parking space I don’t even need.
It probably doesn’t get me any points, spiritually, to be so aggressively polite; I am enjoying it too much.
Holiday Inn Express, Seattle-Tacoma Airport
AdventureMan and I are what we call “Michelin Red R” people. When we were younger, living in Europe courtesy of Uncle Sam, every now and then – not often enough – AdventureMan would take some leave and we would go off adventuring, all over, but our greatest love was traveling in France.
We always had the latest Michelin, but through the years, we discovered that the fanciest places were not the places we liked the best. We would save up and go to a multiple-starred restaurant, order their speciality, and discover that the food was so rich, even with the small portions, even a three course meal would have us awake in the middle of the night, busy digesting the richness of the food.
We discovered, by trial and error, the Michelin red R, which stands for good local food at reasonable prices. Most of these places, you could order a la carte, and while the food remained rich, we found we could enjoy it more eating less of it.
There was also a red R equivalent in the hotels and inns section, but I think maybe it was a red rocking chair. It’s been a while since we’ve made a big trip into France . . .
The Holiday Inn Express at the Seattle Tacoma Airport is a red R in my book. I actually have free nights available at a higher priced chain, but we stayed there on our last long trip, and while the surroundings were luxurious, we found we felt crowded, we like more space and we like NOT to have features we really don’t care about. The rooms were actually about the same size as the one I am staying in, but over-furnished, over-stuffed, crowded.
For being by the airport, it was very very quiet. The shuttle picked me up at the airport almost immediately, they had my room and keys all prepared and waiting for me, it was about the fastest I have ever been checked in.
They are refurbishing the hotel and I like it. I got a new room, with serene furnishings, and all the furnishings I need without too many furnishings. I even had my choice of soft or firm pillows – right in the room. The bathroom was about 6 feet by 10 feet, and had a BIG feel, with terrazzo floors and one of those outward swooping shower curtains.
This is VERY handy, especially if you are tired and don’t want to go out looking for a place to eat, and especially if you are a female traveling alone. I ordered miso soup and salmon teriyaki and had it in under an hour, delivered to my door. There were a huge variety of restaurants to choose from. Wooo HOOO.
I like a room to have a clock I can see in the middle of the night, with an alarm:
I would prefer wi-fi, which is available in the lobby, but they provide a cable in the room, so I have no complaints:
My own little coffee maker, my own little refrigerator, and a little sink and microwave. In the closet is also an ironing board and iron. Yes, it matters to me.
Nice:
And didn’t we just read that metal showerheads gather less bacteria than plastic ones?
Just the right toiletries, not too much, not too little, and a hairdryer. I know it is becoming standard, but even in the nicest hotels sometimes you can get a surprise, and – sometimes they don’t work!
And, just in case there is something missing, they provide it – complimentary – at the desk. I like the graciousness of that.
Bedbugs Bite
With all my articles on household cleanliness, you all are going to think I am a cleanliness freak, but I am not. I DO think there are things we take for granted that we should not. I never thought twice about bedbugs until we stayed once in a reputable hotel and ended up with bites. I am particularly sensitive to all insect bites, and ended up with huge swellings. Fortunately, we were able to get rid of them easily, but we had to sterilize all our bedding and get rid of our mattress – we brought the bugs home with us from Florida. 😦
Now, both AdventureMan and I check the sheets everywhere we stay, and we often feel creepy-crawlies even when none are there! We will never feel entirely safe again.
You can read the entire article on the world-wide bedbug resurgence at BBC Health News You can read more about bedbugs on Wikipedia: Bedbugs
Bedbugs were almost entirely eliminated, and then when the use of DDT was forbidden – for good reasons, by the way. They are now world-wide such a big problem that a conference was recently held in Seattle on how to deal with the bedbug problem.
There has been a massive increase in the number of bed bug infestations, according to a survey.
Statistics from councils in London and the Midlands show the rate increased three-fold in the last decade.
The figures were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by Bed Bugs Limited, which says the insects “breed at a phenomenal rate”.
Bed bugs are insects that commonly hide in mattresses and carpets and in the crevices of furniture.
They are a reddish-brown colour, oval-shaped insect that can grow to a quarter of an inch long.
They cannot fly and survive by sucking blood from a host animal, mainly at night.
There are distinct hotspots in highly populated areas, with lots of multi-occupancy housing where the bugs can easily spread from one household to another.
Bed bugs spread on clothes, bags and in furniture when it is moved.
They do not choose a dirty home over a clean one – all they are interested in is your blood.
BED BUG SIGNS
Bed bugs are not known to carry diseases, but many people develop an itchy swelling when bitten
Check bed and furniture for black dots, which are bed bug faeces
Check sheets for blood, as feeding bugs can be rolled on and squashed
Microbiologist for Bed Bugs Limited, David Cain, said: “If exposed, anyone can bring them home and quickly have a problem, as they breed at a phenomenal rate.”
It is thought that one of the reasons for the rise is increased travelling.
There are corridors of infestations that radiate out from airports like Heathrow and Gatwick, which support the theory that bedbugs have been brought back to this country from countries where they have never been eradicated.
Experts say they are also spread on public transport and short of decontaminating passengers every time they get on a bus, train or plane it would be impossible to stop them spreading.
The advice from Mr Cain is “don’t sit down”. But the epidemic is not just a British problem.
The World Health Organisation says there are infestations in many cities throughout Europe and North America, where bed bugs have been stopped in the past through the use of strong pesticides like DDT, many of which are now longer used.
Bed bugs are not known to carry diseases, but many people develop an itchy swelling when bitten.
Microbiologist for Bed Bugs Limited, David Cain, said: “If exposed, anyone can bring them home and quickly have a problem, as they breed at a phenomenal rate.”
It is thought that one of the reasons for the rise is increased travelling.
There are corridors of infestations that radiate out from airports like Heathrow and Gatwick, which support the theory that bedbugs have been brought back to this country from countries where they have never been eradicated.
Experts say they are also spread on public transport and short of decontaminating passengers every time they get on a bus, train or plane it would be impossible to stop them spreading.
The advice from Mr Cain is “don’t sit down”. But the epidemic is not just a British problem.
The World Health Organisation says there are infestations in many cities throughout Europe and North America, where bed bugs have been stopped in the past through the use of strong pesticides like DDT, many of which are now longer used.
Showering May Be Bad for your Health
LLOOLL, whoda thunk it? A new article published in Proceedings tells us to watch out for dirty shower heads; they can deliver a cartload of bacteria. You can read the entire article on BBC Health News
Showering may be bad for your health, say US scientists, who have shown that dirty shower heads can deliver a face full of harmful bacteria.
Tests revealed nearly a third of devices harbour significant levels of a bug that causes lung disease.
Levels of Mycobacterium avium were 100 times higher than those found in typical household water supplies.
M. avium forms a biofilm that clings to the inside of the shower head, reports the National Academy of Science.
If you are getting a face full of water when you first turn your shower on, that means you are probably getting a particularly high load of Mycobacterium avium, which may not be too healthy
Researcher Professor Norman Pace
In the Proceedings journal, the study authors say their findings might explain why there have been more cases of these lung infections in recent years, linked with people tending to take more showers and fewer baths.
Water spurting from shower heads can distribute bacteria-filled droplets that suspend themselves in the air and can easily be inhaled into the deepest parts of the lungs, say the scientists from the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Potential threat
Lead researcher Professor Norman Pace, said: “If you are getting a face full of water when you first turn your shower on, that means you are probably getting a particularly high load of Mycobacterium avium, which may not be too healthy.”
While it is rarely a problem for most healthy people, those with weakened immune systems, like the elderly, pregnant women or those who are fighting off other diseases, can be susceptible to infection.
They may develop lung infection with M. avium and experience symptoms including tiredness, a persistent, dry cough, shortness of breath and weakness, and generally feel unwell.
When the researchers swabbed and tested 50 shower heads from nine cities in seven different states in the US, including New York City and Denver, they found 30% of the devices posed a potential risk.
Since plastic shower heads appear to “load up” with more bacteria-rich biofilms, metal shower heads may be a good alternative, said Professor Pace.
Family Worship
One of the great blessings of visiting our son and his wife is just spending time together doing the normal things that families do when Mom and Dad don’t live many time zones away in a far and distant land earning a living. This last weekend, we were able to attend church together, which was one of the highlights of my visit with them.
We found a lovely church, Christ Episcopal, in downtown Pensacola. It has organ music, and as my husband says “they sing REAL hymns!” We smiled to see so many families there, from the youngest babies to older folk – the church welcomes us all.
And then AdventureMan spotted the Lutheran Church next door and said “Oh! They have a church souk!”
It was a truly glorious day.
Recent Comments
ExpatAlien on What Country am I Living … intlxpatr on Yellowstone: Old Faithful to C… Michelle on Yellowstone: Old Faithful to C… Cathy on No Grown-Ups in Charge intlxpatr on Waiting for Snow Wikipedia Donate Button
Amazina
Early Voting in Florida
Here There and Everywhere 