Monday, September 15, 2008

Ramadan: Busy, Busy, Busy!

I have been very busy these past few weeks since Ramadan started. We've just finished decorating the windows of our shops, all 8 of them here in Jeddah (a shop per day). And this coming thursday we will be going to Riyadh. We have 3 shops there, in Hayat Mall, in Quorash Mall and in Rimal Mall. We will be staying there for 4 days (Ohh my poor cats!, just joking, somebody will look after them 'til we return from Riyadh) .

To some of you who do not know, Ramadan is the busiest time of the year here and all the Muslim world. It's like Christmas to us Christians (so commercialized), it's just that it doesn't have a fixed date, Ramadan changes every year and the start and end of Ramadan depends upon the moon. Ramadan started last September 1 and end (maybe) on September 30 or after the moon finished a whole cyle for one month.

During a typical Ramadan day, a Muslim should not eat, drink, smoke or have sex starting at day break, but may do so after around PM 6:30 or what they call Adan. Unfortunately, eventough we are not Muslims, we must inhibit ourselves from eating, drinking (water), and smoking during the day, in public, as a sign of respect. So what we do is eat and drink before we go to work at PM 2. We usually sleep around AM 4 (or even later) and wake - up at around 1 o'clock in the afternoon. "Ramadan Kareem" to all my Muslim friends.