Friday September 19, 2008

Selamat Ramadhan, Selamat Hari Raya!! Yes, we are in the midst of "holiday" season here. Let me start with Ramadhan, it is the month of fasting where Muslims around the world abstain from food, drink, smoking, and sex from dawn to dusk ( for some reason when I ask, everyone always mentions the sex part...didn't know the people here really enjoyed afternoon "quickies" ). Fasting is one of the Five Pillars of the religion and one of the highest forms of worshipping. Abstinence from earthly pleasures and desires is regarded as an act of obediance and submission as well as atonement for sins. It starts in the 9th month of the Islamic calendar although the date changes every year according to the moon, an Imam ( holy man ) will declare the exact date. So early in the morning families will have a meal ( Sahur ) before the sun comes up and then pray, throughout the day when they show signs of thirst or hunger ( or horniness) they will pray and then after sunset they have a meal ( Buka Puasa ) and pray again, five prayers total p/day. Ramadhan lasts a month but the last 10 days are considered highly blessed especially the 27th day which is called the "Night of Destiny". It is believed that on this day Muhammed received the first revelation of the Qur'an, subsequently during the 30 days of Ramadhan, the entire Qur'an is read aloud in the mosques. In addition to fasting Muslims are encouraged to help the needy and homeless financially and emotionally because they feel their reward will be 70 times greater ( don't ask, I don't know how they came up with 70 ). At the end of of the month is a celebration called Eid-ul-Fitr also known as Hari Raya.

Hari Raya means "Celebration day of Fasting", to me it's like Christmas for Muslims. At the end of 30 days everyone gets together in their new clothes, exchange gifts, go to mosque, and then have feasts. All of the malls have promotions, decorations, and play Hari Raya music. People also do renovations on their homes during Ramadhan so they can be ready when their families come to celebrate Hari Raya ( we have about 5 homes around us that are construction zones ), so much for giving up earthly pleasures. I don't mind all of it, I get some good deals when I go shopping because of it all plus when they're done for some reason, everyone gets into the Christmas spirit. Muslims don't celebrate Christmas but from what I've heard they do exchange presents.

Now back to our life. Oso is a fixed man now with clean teeth. He had his "surgery" and seems to be doing better although his patience with Sox is thinner now. I feel bad for him but I know it's all for the best. Jim had a first last week. He was driving somewhere and got pulled over for talking on his cell phone without a headset. He didn't have his passport or license so the officer had to call his supervisor over. He started explaining to Jim how much he was going to have to pay in fines and such so Jim asked what could they do to fix the "problem", he had already taken some money out of his wallet and was holding it discreetly close to the inside of the car door. The supervisor whispered for Jim to hold the money lower, then the supervisor said "You can buy me a drink sometime" and took the money, then sent Jim on his way. Jim's first bribe! I thought it was funny. Something not so funny was the other night we were watching tv downstairs and we had the patio door open so the dogs could in and out when all of a sudden I saw something fly into the house. Everyone knows that I hate bugs and lizards, but this was a bat! I freaked out and laid down on the floor. Jim was like "What's wrong!" and I'm like "There's a bat in the house!". Next thing you know we're both on the floor crawling until we can run upstairs and locked ourselves in the bedroom. I had just seen an Ellen show where a man had a Malaysian bat on and all I remember him saying was that they could get so big where their wing span would be 6 feet long! We waited for a while and then I sent Jim downstairs to check everything out. Thankfully the bat found it's way back outside but nowadays when I go outside I'm checking every corner for flying rodents.

So that's been whats happening with us. Only other thing I can think of is recently we were warned of upcoming riots. Apparently the political opposition says that they have enough members to take over the government. Odd enough, they announced the date they were planning the riots to everyone but at the last minute it was changed and rescheduled. I don't know, if I was planning a coup I don't know if I would call up the newspapers and announce it, wouldn't you want it to be a surprise? Rest assured that we are keeping up with the updates so we can avoid going out when it does happen, if it happens, although a lot of people have told Jim that no one will riot in Bangsar where we live. Supposedly this is an affluential area so we should be safe. I'll let you know. We have also booked some flights home so we'll be seeing everyone soon enough plus we'll be in Langkawi next weekend for Jim's birthday. I probably won't post anything until we come back and hopefully I'll have some delightful stories to tell.