More about Ramadan

Last time I wrote mostly about how the fasting goes in real life, with no food and drink. There is also more to it. During fasting time it is also prohibited to have sex and smoke. Furthermore, during the Ramadan month it is not allowed to say or do bad things. I guess it is never allowed, but especially during Ramadan it is a big sin. Also, Ramadan is not only about fasting with your body by not eating and drinking. It is also a month when you concentrate on praying and praising the God, Allah. It is also good for you, if you give up something else terrestrial, material or do some other effort you would like to do in your life. For example, if you you think you should spend less time surfing the social media, you can give up using social media during Ramadan. As for me, this was something I wanted to do. So I saw my chance to give up using facebook for at least one week.

By now, I have completed my one week fasting from facebook. I should do more often this! For me, total denying is what works. I am a person of extreme ends. Everything or nothing, you know. I manage the fasting, whether it is with food or something else (I took myself the right to apply the word 'fasting' to different kinds of things, even though probably it is normally used only for food and drink), a lot better a diet where I should control the amounts of food I am eating. In Finland we have a proverb that says "if you give the devil your little finger, it will take the whole hand". I think this is quite true.

Now I have only two days left here in this school with these awesome people. Also for me it means only two days of fasting left. I will continue my travel to Malaysia, and I will not continue fasting there, as we will be doing many physical activities there and I will need more nutrition and hydration. I have completed my fasting goal, that was one week. But as it happens, it feels good to continue fasting the two remaining days also. I thought it would be more difficult, that is why I set a goal  for me. I was sure after reaching my goal I would want to eat normally the last days. But actually I have begun to like doing these daily rituals with my new teacher friends here. Waking up way too early for Sahur, breaking the fast together and keep eating until it's time to go to sleep. Lying on the floor chatting and laughing, complaining how full we are and still eating more. It's very powerful, to do all of this together. Sharing the moments and the feelings.

By the way, for some reason these people didn't believe I could manage fasting and they keep being surprised when they hear I am still fasting. And they keep telling me they love me when they hear I am fasting. That is funny, why would my fasting make them love me? :D

For your interest, I did not loose weight during fasting. If there was a change, it was increasing. At least I feel more fat. I was also told that going up in weight during Ramadan is not even rare. People eat more than normally in the evening, night and early morning. People put more effort in the menu during Ramadan, I feel like it is kind of rewarding after being the whole day without eating and drinking. There are some special foods also that are sold only in the Ramadan month. People prepare and buy huge amounts of food and drinks for dinner. The food is delicious, more delicious than normally if possible. That is why you keep eating even though you would be full already, you just want to eat more and more and more. At least it happened to us. It was also something we joked a lot about, your mouth wanting more food than your stomach.