Ramadan is a Muslim tradition. It occurs in the 9th month of the lunar year when the crescent moon is sighted. Ramadan begins the next day and lasts for a full month. So it varies from year to year. This year it began on July 20th (my birthday-lucky me).
Ramadan is a time of showing devotion to god. They are to devote their sould to god by praying and should visit the mosque as often as possible. They are also suppose to read the entire Quran during this month. It is also a month of fasting from sunrise to sunset. The fasting includes: food, water, smoking and sexual activity. They meal at sunrise is called Suhoor and the meal at sunset is called Iftar. During the time between sunset and sunrise they will go and visit family and friends. At the end of the month they spend 3 days celebrating.
So what does this have to do with me since I am not Muslim and don't worship Allah:
Ramadan is a time of showing devotion to god. They are to devote their sould to god by praying and should visit the mosque as often as possible. They are also suppose to read the entire Quran during this month. It is also a month of fasting from sunrise to sunset. The fasting includes: food, water, smoking and sexual activity. They meal at sunrise is called Suhoor and the meal at sunset is called Iftar. During the time between sunset and sunrise they will go and visit family and friends. At the end of the month they spend 3 days celebrating.
So what does this have to do with me since I am not Muslim and don't worship Allah:
- Fasting - I was encouraged by one of the nurses to try it for one day. I might have thought about it except for not being able to drink even water during the day. You can eat breakfast but it has to be before 4 am and I am not a morning person and I don't think the hotel room service is available at that time either. So I didn't choose to accept her challenge.
- We are not permitted to eat or drink in public. We have had to order food to our hotel room. I have missed not having breakfast with my teammates before leaving for work in the morning. It was our time to plan our day. During the day when we have been at work, we are not suppose to eat or drink in front of anyone. What with teaching classes all day, that has been very hard not to have something to drink while I am lecturing. We have a room we use to store our stuff and we have had to sneak away to drink our water. We can't even drink in the car or let our water bottles be seen outside of our room. We have also noticed that some of the nurses have a harder time concentrating during the day. The nurses that were fasting during the on-line test they took for NRP took longer to complete the test and had a more difficult time completing the test. None of the restaraunts in the hotel open until 7:20 in the evening. Fasting during the day is why I almost got myself into trouble yesterday for eating ice cream at Baskin Robbins. (See yesterday's post) After our adventure yesterday I saw an article in the paper that said anyone not observing the fasting and is caught eating or drinking in public would be subject to sacking. I am not sure what sacking means and I don't want to find out. I do know that stoning occurs and they still have a chopping square here in Jeddah where the be-heading occurs.
- Activities - most everything occurs during sunset to sunrise. This includes even activities at the hospital. The first day we pulled into the hospital parking lot in the morning it was completely empty. The only ones that seemed to arrive at a traditional time for work was the nurses. The doctors didn't arrive until 10 am. We were doing rounds with the doctors every morning at 8 am. We had to switch those to 10. We were suppose to start our classes at 8 am. The doors to the auditorium were locked. The gentleman responsible to opening up the room and getting everything set up no longer was coming in at 7:30, he would be there around 10. We had to find someone else to open the room and we had to do our own set-up so we could start our classes on time. Some of the workers have reduced working hours, they only work 5-6 hours instead of the traditional 8 hours. That doesn't include the nurses by the way. Plus because of the heat, they have banned working outside for a period of time during the day. So you really have reduced time that anyone is working.
- I had hoped to do a little more sight-seeing these last few days of my time here. I hadn't had a chance to go check out one of the private beaches on the Red Sea but the beaches are closed during the whole month of Ramadan. I had also planned on going to the Jeddah Zoo, but it's hours of operation during this month are from 9:30 pm to 2 am, where normally they are open from 4 pm to 12 am. The shopping malls are only open during the evening as well. And they are open until early morning hours as well. That would be all fine and good, but we have to up early in the morning to go to work. And even on our days off, my teammates haven't been very excited about going out that late at night. You should see the traffic at midnight. It was worse than ever.
- On our days to work, it hasn't been bad. As we work during the day, come back to the hotel to rest for an hour or so and then meet for supper. But the week-end has been extremely long as I am not use to not doing something on my days off...........cleaning, laundry, shopping, or going somewhere. I have managed to keep myself busy with reading and creating a scrapbook of pictures from Saudi Arabia or watching some movies on TV.
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