From the Black Iris of Jordan:
Why does every thing seem to slow down during Ramadan?
Lunatic drivers seem to be the only people going fast these days, both before and after breakfast. Banks, who with their typical 9 to 3 hours already make it hard for customers to bank, seem to close shop before they even open, with their 9 to 1 Ramadan schedule. Four hours!? Heck, I should have been a banker!
Ministries, government departments and boards, forget about it. Everyone is half asleep. Everyone comes in late and starts to disappear around the duhr prayer time. Some will even advise you to come back after Ramadan is over when they can “think straight”. As if Ramadan was a mental blockade over the weekend.
People move slow before ftoor, because they’re hungry and tired and lazy and drowsy and craving for a nicotine fix. And then people move slowly after ftoor because they’re stuffed and can’t move and are just plain sleepy.
A few years back I remember economist Fahed Al-Fanek attempting to figure out the economic loses during Ramadan. He took GDP, divided it by 365 and removed the 30 days of Ramadan. Suffice to say there are more holes in that formula than there are on a sinking boat.
It may be near impossible to actually figure out how much we lose economically during this month. People don’t seem to work, or are too busy trying to avoid work. Businesses cut their 9 to 5 working hours in half. And I can only imagine what Ramadan will be like in the summer months!
Yes! The Ramadan summers! Can you imagine what it will be like for the next couple of decades while Ramadan travels back in time, into the summer months. Where everyone is hot and thirsty and sweating? How will people behave then? What will economic loses look like then?
But wait, money isn’t the only thing we lose…
People also seem to lose small fractions of their mind or sanity. Everyone seems to get a little stupider than usual, a little meaner, and a little more unforgiving, and Ramadan becomes their scapegoat.
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1 comment:
It was 109 degrees here in this Muslim city where I work today, and 8% relevant humidity. I can't imagine what it was like for my friends and colleagues who weren't drinking. And yes, virtually no work got done in our office today...
But please encourage people to pray for Muslims the rest of this Ramadan, that their hearts would be open to the Lord, that they would seek and find Him.
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