Ramadhan Kareem

In Ramadhan, night turns to day and day turns to night. First is the confusing shopping hours. The shops are closed in the mornings, (some open from 10- dzohor) then they will open from 3 – 5 pm and then they will close again and reopen from 9 – 2 am.

Its like a ghost town in the day. The inhabitants probably dozing away. Even office hours have been adjusted, from 9 – 3:30. There is a huge traffic jam between 3 - 4 pm. People rushing home for iftar.

We went for dinner after magrib the other day, the roads were empty! As empty as it can be. After having some dates and performing our magrib prayers, we left for the restaurant. There were hardly any cars. It was amazingly empty. We had our dinner at an empty restaurant. Apparently the crowds will only come after 10 pm.

My beloved and I never did go round shopping for cars before. We either bought cars that friends sold to us or just borrowed or rented. So this is our first car shopping experience, and guess what, people test drive cars between 9 pm to 1 am here. I guess its apt because the traffic is really crazy around that time. Plus, for reasons unknown to me, they have car sales in Ramadhan. Perhaps it’s a local custom to sport a new car for Eid hehehe. A friend got pissed off because he bought his car 2 months ago and found that the same model has reduced in price by 20K this Ramadhan. Imagine that! Perhaps they were just trying to boost car sales during this period.

We are still at quandary about which car to buy. Obviously the ones we want are slightly beyond our budget. I let him do most of the choosing. I think he is having fun with the process of looking for a car. Comfort for long distance is important as we hope, Insyallah, we will get to make trips for umrah in the chariot.

I have more Ramadhan stories to tell, but can’t get round to putting them into words.

Wishing everyone Ramadhan kareem. May we all benefit from this month. BTW, just to share a hadith I learnt recently, a hadith sahih, if you feed the people who fasted in the day, then your pahala is equivalent to the pahala of the person who fasted. So let us all take the opportunity to be generous this month.