Imagine, its Ramadhan and you’re alone in Saudi, without your family. Do the sahur alone, do the iftar (breaking fast) alone. And, you’re not the ‘species’ that love to cook. (May be after one month of fasting, you will be a few kilos lighter ;-))
One day, my Saudi friend who is also my office mate, knowing that I’m all alone, make an offer, to breaking fast together, at my house. And, the unique thing about it is, he will bring the food. At first, I do not really take it seriously because I think he is not really serious. “It’s not fun to breaking fast with someone else, in his house, only with him, and yet I need to bring the food. I would rather do it at my own house with my family.”, that’s what I thought.
But, he is serious. So, one day August 26 2009, about 10 minutes before adzan, he was in front of my house, bringing variety of foods, which could feed 4-5 people:
- Qahwa (Coffee)
- Soup
- Juices
- Kapsa
- Salad
- Kurma
- Dumplings
- Samosa
At my side, I just need to prepare the plates, drinking water and … my stomach ;-)
It has been a tradition here ,to breaking fast with water and kurma, go to Maghrib prayer and come back to have a full meals. The Isya’ prayer azan is adjusted to be exactly 2 hour after the Maghrib azan, but the iqamah is also adjusted to be 5 minutes instead of the usual 20-25 minutes.
Thank you Yazeed for your kindness. This of course has added up another good episodes in Saudi (out of so many ‘bad’ one) that I’ll remember on. Another proof of Saudi Hospitality.
Barakallahufikum to Yazeed for his willingness having Iftar with me, and to his family for letting his son to be with me that evening; and for the foods.
