Ramadhan, or 'the month of fasting', is a big thing for us Moslems, Indonesians included. Islam's term of fasting, different from Christian's, is 12 hours of total restrain from worldly pleasures from dawn 'til dusk. That means no food, no drink, no cigar(ette), no sex, no gossip, etc. from around 4am 'til around 6pm. It may sound hard to do, but it's really not.

I'm no Islam expert, so I won't even try to explain what's behind this whole no-worldly-pleasure thing for fear of misinterpretation. I'll leave the explanation to the experts!

Anyway, there are several things Indonesian Moslem customary do prior to Ramadhan.

The first and most important thing is to ask for forgiveness from family and friends. Some people go as far as visiting their loved ones' graves to pay respect and pray for them. I'm more of the practical side on this one. I don't believe in taking a plane/train/bus ride just to pray for my departed love ones. If I can pay respect and pray for them from exactly where I am, why waste hundred of thousand. Most people just ask for forgiveness from their immediate family and closest friends. After lunch together with my colleagues a day before fasting started, I spent most of the afternoon shaking peoples' hands. I can't say that I enjoyed it, but it's one of those 'things to do'.

The second thing to do is to wash our hair the night before the first day of Ramadhan. It would take a long time to explain this one, so I won't even try to get into it!

After doing it awhile, one sort of get use to the 'restrain from worldly pleasures' part. I have no problem not being able to have anything to eat/drink during the day. Sometime I have no appetite to eat I skip lunch anyway. I also have no problem with 'no sex during the day' as I have nobody to have sex with. What I have a problem with is the sleepiness. When you have to get up at 3 in the morning for Sahur (breakfast before dawn) and can't get back to sleep, you're bound to be tired. Sleeping during the day while fasting is actually encouraged in Islam (it's better to sleep rather than to gossip or to think about food/drink/sex all the time), but it's impossible to do it at work, now is it!

Speaking about sleepiness, I'm so sleepy right now I feel like sleeping until tomorrow morning! Unfortunately, I still have tons of things to do! To keep my mind off of 'worldly pleasure', I'd rather write than sleep, so there you have it!