The Daily Post Prompt : Struggle

June 14, 2016

In- response to today’s daily post prompt: Struggle

Wikipedia image of moon sighting in Bahrain

The word, Struggle is a part of our life. Lately I struggle to leave my bed @ 2:14 am to wash and eat something, otherwise I’d have to wait till sunset, to eat.

It’s not that I’m deprived of food, but to eat at that time, i.e., 2:20 in the morning is a challenge for my stomach. I force myself to eat a few crackers, exactly two with a cup of milk, it’s the most trying thing  to do.

This is the month of Ramadhan, we started fasting from the 6th of June, it will continue till July 5th. After completing a month of fasting, we have a big feast. It’s nice to see all kinds of people dressed in new clothes and visit each others house to wish, “Happy Eid al Fitr.”

We used to have a party to celebrate our big day in the mosque, the venue has changed, because there are too many people and the mosque is not large enough to host the party.

Before I get  carried away about the big celebration, I must remember to write about the fasting month. During this month every able person, man, woman and child must observe the fasting month. When I say child I mean those who are eight years old, they begin fasting at age eight or older, some probably fast when they are older.

Where I live the days are very long, it’s about sixteen hours of fasting. The sun sets here @9 pm, this is when we open our fast with a few dates and water, then we offer our after the sunset prayer, it’s called, Maghrib in Arabic. After this prayer we eat our dinner, which is almost 9:30 pm. After dinner we have one more prayer which is, Isha in Arabic.

I wrote it’s a struggle because we have wake up very early, eat and drink, water and milk in my case, because Tea, will keep me up. Ramadhan is a very sacred month for us, we try to offer our prayer on time, give  alms , depending on how much we can afford.

If some people are sick they are allowed to skip fasting, instead they have to feed a poor person for the whole month.

I don’t mean to say Ramadhan is a month when we have to struggle, not for anything else, but for me it is the time I have to wake up, to eat. I love praying but eating makes me struggle!

……………………………………….. 🙂