Ramadan Kareem

Yesterday was the first day of Ramadan for the Muslim world, and it makes this country look very different. Of course, I'm making a lot of generalizations, but from what I can tell a number of things change. Everyone changes their business hours, that is if they don't go on vacation for most of the month, and many stores and businesses aren't open until around 8pm. Supermarkets appear to stay open all of the time, and we are still going to school for training from 9am-2:30pm, but virtually everything is closed during the day. According to their religion, muslims do not eat, drink (even water), smoke, chew gum, or consume anything during daylight hours, so it is important to get home for the feast! The insane rush to get home and break the fast makes the traffic here even more scary than it usually is, affectionately called "Ramadan rush hour," but the freeway that we live next to was bare right after the sun went down yesterday.

The city was even more brilliantly lit last night, as it appears people hang lights and celebrate in a fashion that we do during the Christmas season. The culture also seems more generous to give bargains and courtesies during this time. Hopefully, that will continue past Ramadan. Last week at the supermarket, some of the management was having a pre-Ramadan celebration by cutting a HUGE cake and passing it out to many of the customers. The Arab world sure knows how to do pastries!

We have a good number of teachers living in our apartment building now, about 15, and one of them is good friends with a family in the area. "A" came to hang out with us last night and share his Ramadan chocolates at our pizza party- maybe part of his "zakat," or charity. Who knows. But, it was really interesting to talk very personally with someone about his family's customs for this season.

Thanks for continuing to check in with us. I know the blog hasn't been updated too often, so if you subscribe to it via RSS feed or through your email (I recommend the Yahoo Beta or Google Reader versions), you won't have to check back all of the time. If you need to know how to do that, there are plenty of web tutorials. We still don't have the internet- a bummer- but hopefully we will shortly. Check in later this week for a post on our visit to the Kuwait Towers.