Ramadan Mubarak

So yesterday was the first day of Ramada in Oman.  This is my first experience of Ramadan and having heard many stories and seen a mass evacuation of the local expat community I have to admit that I’m a little nervous.

Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. As the Islamic calendar is based on the lunar calendar, the exact dates can vary depending where you are in the world.  You would have thought that with all the world’s scientific knowledge it would be easy to determine the cycle of the moon. I mean, what on earth was Jenny doing at university for 4 years? No, don’t answer that! So it turns out that Oman has an official “moon sighting committee” who gaze into the sky and decide when the new moon will be seen. In my mind I think it’s an old man sitting on a hill gazing into the sky waiting for the moon to appear and then sending signals into the village with classical music playing in the background Something like one of those old Warburtons adverts. However, I guess in reality it’s a bit more complicated than that.

Ramadan is the Muslim month of fasting. Each day during this month, Muslims all over the world abstain from eating, drinking, smoking, as well as participating in anything that is ill-natured or excessive; from dawn until the sun sets. Restraint from everyday enjoyment and curbing wicked intentions and cravings are considered as an act of compliance and obedience to God, as well as amends for sins, faults, and mistakes.

Here is a list of all the do’s and don’ts.

So, in reality what this means for us is that we can’t eat or drink in public during the day, including water. Everything seems to take twice as long to get done as people are tired and have a lack of energy. It must be pretty tough to get your body used to it and would take a lot of discipline to stick to it.

So 2 days in and it’s not too bad. Only 27/28 more to go…