Happy Ramadan!!

Well, Ramadan is here and today is the first day. I was going to fast, but when my alarm went off at 4:30 to remind me to eat breakfast before the sun came up I turned around and punched it off and went back to sleep. (At least that is what I am assuming happened, considering I don't really remember the event.) I woke up starving and thirsty at 10AM into bright sunlight. Since I messed up the whole day I decided that the whole month was blown so I made coffee and oatmeal and decided to give up refined sugars and cigarettes instead. This was blown about three minutes later after I made the oatmeal and discovered that I was out of artificial sweetener.

The Yemenis know how to make it through this holiday. Although I think that fasting and feeling hunger is sort of the point, they get around this little inconvenience quite well by simply moving the workday to night and sleeping during daylight hours. This would explain why I am sitting in the computer lab at 9:35 PM waiting for my 10PM class to start that finishes around midnight. I have four cups of coffee in me and I still feel like I am going to pass out. I am not a night person. (I'm not really a morning person for that matter either.)

So as far as I can tell, the average Yemeni will get up around three or four in the afternoon (except for the women who have to cook for about three hours prior,) break fast at around 5:30PM, then start their day. Most people go to work at around 8PM and go to sleep around 4AM, as the sun is coming up before they have their "early" morning meal. It's the way to do it, I guess.

Election day went off without a hitch. The incumbent, Salah, got somewhere between 75-85% of the votes (depending if you are talking to a supporter or not) and there was no real violence. As my student put it, "just three people where killed". I guess that is a improvement over the last years. I went out and met a Aussie named Ben (an Arabic student whose blog can be seen here,) and although I suspect that they "Hey baby I love you" were a little more frequent then usual the city was pretty quiet.

Anyway, time for class.