Fasting in summer

After a week of fasting, I must say that this has been the most challenging Ramadan ever.  First of all the hours are long.  We have to fast for more than 18 hours a day.  The long hours did not only mean that we have to wait a long time before we can break our fast.  Our late supper, usually after 9.30pm, meant that we would go to bed with stuffed tummies.

That made it difficult to go to bed.  Also, that meant that when we wake up at 2.30am for our morning meal, we are still too full to eat.  We some times only drank a glass of water or shared an apple.  That caused another problem - we got too hungry in the day since we didn't have enough to eat to sustain long hours of fasting.  Some times, it seems like we had gone without food or water for 24 hours. 

The lack of food for long hours some times would cause my tummy to be wrecked by sharp pains.  When that happens, I had to grit my teeth and wait for the pain to be over.  And usually it will.  Another challenge is the dry air.  It makes my throat dry.  I didn't notice how dry the air is before I started fasting.  To make matters worse, the past week has been very hot.  Temperatures would rise up to 25C and the day would start getting bright by 8am and the sun would not relent until past 9pm.

So, this week, what we had to do was to adapt and adjust.  We made sure we didn't eat too much at night and to find something light that we could eat in the morning.  I planned to serve oats in the morning but it was too much for us so we ended up eating cereal instead.  And with each day, once we got used to it, it gets easier and easier.

Before I moved here, I had already started to worry about fasting during the long hours in summer.  And after experiencing it for a week, I can say that it is more challenging than I thought it would be.  But it is the challenge that makes me feel so amazed and so thankful that we made it day after day.  I'm even more amazed that for a first timer, Pete, the guy who loves to snack on chips, is able to keep up. 

Now that we've completed one week of fasting, I believe it will get easier.  We have gotten used to the long hours of fasting now and most importantly, the days are starting to get shorter.  It's also likely that the weather will get cooler next week.  Hopefully we will be able to complete the rest of Ramadan healthily.