The Start of Hunger

Today is the start or Ramadan which is the month of the Islamic calendar when Muslims don't eat during daylight hours. According to the Al Quran, starting in the morning when you can distinguish a black thread from a white, you can't eat, drink, smoke or have sexual relations. This ends in the evening after the 5th prayer of the day. Some Muslims take it so far as to spit all day so they don't swallow their own saliva because that could be considered drinking.

This is particularly hard on the cooks at the school since they still have to cook all day long but can't eat anything from around 5:00 AM until 7:00 PM. I don't know if I could do that. You would expect this to be a bad time for restaurants but interestingly enough, it is the best time of the year for them since they get a lot of business during the day from people cheating since they can't go home and everyone goes out to eat at night since they are too weak to cook food. This is also a good time of year to play sports against indonesian teams. They are always really weak from hunger and dehydrated by the afternoon.

This will go on for roughly one month and will end with Idul Fitri or the Day of Power when supposedly Muhammmad got his first Revelation from God. This is also the month when all employees (except us expats) get paid for a 13th month. Kinda like a Christmas bonus.