Rhythms and Rituals of Ramadan

This is a pretty good description of what happens in Qatar during Ramadan, even though this story was written whilst the author was in Banda Aceh, Indonesia.


Rhythms and rituals of Ramadan

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THE INCIDENTAL TOURIST: Virginia Jealous | August 08, 2009
Article from: The Australian

DURING Ramadan in Banda Aceh, on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, life is very different.

Working hours are shorter, projects come to a standstill for the duration, my colleagues who fast are tired and short-tempered. By early afternoon, lassitude descends. Buildings are sealed against the heat, and people snooze if they can or sit quietly at computers. No one talks much; mouths dry out, breath is stale.

Those of us who eat lunch do so surreptitiously, behind closed office doors and curtained windows, food delivered in anonymous brown cardboard boxes. The few eating places that remain open during the day have blacked-out windows, or are screened from the outside, with notices stipulating "non-Muslims only" on the doors and Sharia police on lookout duty in the streets.

A friend, unthinking, unwraps and eats a sweet outside a shop and is loudly castigated by an old woman who pulls it from her hand and throws it on the ground. Most local people forgive such small insensitivities, though. Twice I taste the leaves of market vegetables for freshness, as usual, and am instantly apologetic. The stallholder knows me and grins, saying, "No problem, we know it's too hard for you non-Muslims to fast."

Around 4pm, street vendors come out in force. Roadside stalls appear, selling crushed sugar cane and fruit juices, or fried snacks -- such as savoury pancakes, stuffed tofu, crepes made of bright-green pandanus and filled with palm sugar and grated coconut -- to be packaged up and taken away to eat later, before the evening meal. The streets become a frenzied mass of horn-honking cars and motorbikes and cyclists double-parked alongside the markets, with stern policemen at intersections and pedestrians venturing out at their peril.

At dusk, the breaking of the fast is marked by a loud, lengthy blast on a siren. A few last, stray motorbikes rev up and zip past, riders keen to get home and eat with family and friends. Then absolutely nothing moves for a half hour or so as people rehydrate and renourish.

For a non-Muslim living with a mosque in the immediate vicinity -- and almost everyone lives with a mosque in the immediate vicinity in Banda Aceh -- the balmy nights of Ramadan signal a storm of amplified noise. Evenings on the open-microphone at the mosque go from about 8pm to midnight; the "wake up and eat before dawn" announcement is about 3am; regular prayers start at 4.30am. The few (very few) hours of quiet are fraught with a mix of anxiety about having to sleep now, at once, before the loudspeakers start again and an urge to lie awake and enjoy the silence.

On early morning walks I've become more familiar than I'd choose with the work of the local goat-killer, whose backyard abattoir has been very busy slaughtering animals for evening feasts. Schools are on holiday so this time of day is crazy, with over-excited kids and adolescents roaming around on a pre-dawn breakfast high.

Gangs sweep yahooing through the streets riding motorbikes and piled three or four to each, while younger groups do wheelies on bicycles and rampage loudly through the village lanes. They're all boys, of course, and all of them without fail shout something at me. Mostly they're not hostile. The girls roam in great packs too, but more demurely. They've been to religious classes and are swathed in white prayer cloaks and headcovers, billowing clouds of fabric.

Then as it heats up, it quiets down. The Ramadan routine has started again.

Ramadan will be observed by Muslim countries and communities from August 21 to September 19 this year.