Working in Ramadan

The entire rhythm of the country changes during Ramadan.  Work stops, or is significantly reduced, and shops and restaurants are closed until after 7pm, but open late into the wee hours.  Saudi's will stay awake all night and then sleep through the day to help ease the stress of fasting.  Our hours were reduced during Ramadan.  We didn't start until 9am and finished at 2pm.  Even then, because there were no summer school classes, we weren't actually doing any work.  The couches on the other hand were overloaded.  I never saw them vacant once during Ramadan. They were full of women napping, exhausted from staying up late to visit and eat.  Even for those of us who weren't fasting, things changed.  It is illegal to be seen eating or drinking in public even if you are not Muslim.  Technically, we could eat at work, we just had to make sure no one saw us, and that whatever food we ate had no smell.  Since all of the stores were closed, our shopping trips were now from 7pm to 11pm instead of the early afternoon. It was weird buying milk and bread after 10pm, and seeing whole families with excited children out this late too.

I fell into a pattern like everyone else, going to sleep late (technically, really really early) then sleeping through the hottest parts of the day.  I managed to avoid eating at work, but ate as soon as I came home from work, I would eat something before falling asleep for a quick 2 hour nap.    After only two or three days, the new schedule seemed normal and I didn't mind not eating.  I did have a problem not drinking though and I often hid in my cubicle chugging water. After all, I've been using my time not teaching to jog around campus every morning.  Not bad getting paid to exercise and not eat, this may be the greatest new diet fad of all time.  Of course, the over indulging in the evenings may sort of cancel that one out.  The dates alone people typically eat to break fast are sugary calorific nightmares, albeit delicious nightmares.  I like the just ripe dates that are still yellow and crunchy.  They are crisp and sweet, but also slightly tart.  After a week or two, they dry into the sweet chewy dates everyone knows and loves.  I find them to be almost too sweet on their own already, but some dates are even packaged with sugar water to make them even sweeter.

These dates are delicious!

One of the other teachers and I passed part of our working days going to the date palms planted out in front of the University.  Even though we were less than 50 feet from the building we were stuck inside 8 hours a day for the last 4 months, it felt like a field trip.  It was a welcome relief for a long day, and as an added bonus, they were low enough to the ground that we could just pick them.  And because no Saudi would ever come outside if they didn't have to, no one was around to see us eating them in public during fasting hours. There were two varieties, yellow dates and red dates.  To me, the yellow dates were better fresh, but the red dates were better dried.

A just ripe fresh date....

We acted like date connoisseurs, even though we knew nothing about dates...  "this one has a decidedly sugar cane flavor..."  "this bunch was grown on the south side of the palm, so it is milder than those on the west side of the trunk."  "You can tell by the bunching pattern that this group will be good for date cakes."  I was so glad I sewed pockets into my abaya, because they made perfect date pouches. I always came back to the office with my abaya dragging on the sides from all the extra weight. It was almost worth having to go to work for.

My favorite part of working during Ramadan though, was the afternoon Quran studies.  A group of teachers and admin ladies would gather around every afternoon, and together they would read the Quran and talk about what they had read.  I never got to take part or listen in, as it was all in Arabic, but it felt good just to see them gathered there.  You could see it in their faces that what they were doing was important to them, and that the support of each other was feeding them in a way that eating normally never could.  After these sessions, the women always seemed more friendly, open, and kind.  Which is another added bonus of Ramadan.  Good deeds count double during this time, so they are always willing to help you and do you favors during this time.  I usually made sure that if I needed anything, I waited until the afternoon to ask about it.  I think I got better results that way.

There was a lot of discussion about Ramadan the way we discuss the commercialization of Christmas. Some people worried that Ramadan had become about the great sales at the grocery stores and malls.  Or that the more spiritual side of Ramadan - the extra prayers and studying of the Quran - that are supposed to be done to fill the hours of fasting.  Instead, most people spend this time sleeping and focus instead on the late night parties to celebrate breaking fast with friends and family.  This "lazy Ramadan" is possible in part because by Saudi law, life during Ramadan has been made as easy as possible.  Unlike Muslims in the rest of the world, who have to continue to work normal hours and be tempted by everyone else who is eating in front of them. Saudi's have reduced or sometimes even cancelled work hours, and it is illegal to be seen eating or drinking in public.  Some of the Muslims here from England claim that Ramadan here is like cheating,  it doesn't mean as much to them because it isn't the same level of sacrifice, which adds even more to the feeling that Ramadan no longer means what it used to.