Ramadhan!

Just wanted to say, Happy Ramadhan to all. Its the 2nd day of ramadhan here, and all is well. And just for a little cultural update; What is Ramdhan?
Ramdhan is the 30 days where the prophet Mohommad was in the desert recieving the information in the Koran from heaven and writing it down. It is THE holy month on the muslim religious calender, and is celebrated by fasting. This entails one to neither eat, nor drink anything, from about 4 in the morning till 7 at night. (This is real serious here too, nothing can enter bodily orafices, strict muslims won't bathe or swim during this time, nor will they brush their teeth, nor will married people have sexual relations). Nothing at all enters the body during this time! Then just after evening prayer (magharibi) everyone breaks the fast with a meal called futari. Futari is a celebatory time, like christmas dinner, everyone is welcome at the table, and it sometimes happens that everynight everyone in a village may eat together, (ex. so futari would be at my house one night, and I'd cook massive amounts of food- and the next night at your house where you'd provide all the food). For my area its very common for extended familys to eat together (and friends), but not the whole village. I often get invited to dine with different neighbors, and I usually go. Its great! Afterwords people walk about and talk for a bit, then go to sleep. Everyone then wakes up real early in the morning (3 ish) and eats something , and drinks a whole lot of water and the process starts again.
I did it some last year too, though this year I'll try to go for much longer (though I suspect as I'm traveling to the mainland for a bit I won't make it the whole 30 days). The part thats suprising is that its not really the food part thats difficult, its the water. When you wake up in the morning you HAVE to drink alot of water or you'll never make it. Myself I try to drink at least a liter each morning. You feel like you are swimming but it pays off in the afternoon.
A funny thing that you wouldn't think of though is that when you do drink so much water, and then try to go back to sleep, its somehow difficult to get a good nights rest, as one has to get up frequently to pee.
But anyway. Happy Ramadhan! Love to all!