Whilst leaving the mosque after last Friday’s prayer (sermon), a few young boys and a couple of Asians were collecting charities and giving away flyers for Omra trips during Ramadhan and ‘Iftaar Saa’im’ (A small donation given during ramadhan to break a muslim’s fast at dusk). I took one of the flyers and saw that Iftaar Saa’im costs a dinar! Last year it was only 500 fils!
Doubled!
Inflation has risen to astronomical heights in many countries around the world, and we especially with the holy month of Ramadhan around the corner, should always keep the less fortunate in our minds and realize that this year its going to much tougher on them than ever before…
In contrast, yesterday 27th August 2008, LuLu Hypermarket opened in Riffa and its 300,000 square feet store is now the largest hypermarket in Bahrain. The hypermarket is a 3 minute drive from where I live and from 10am, long queues of cars were spawning from all directions heading to it- in an area which used to be considered an ‘unbusy’ area.
By 12am midnight, the car queues were considerably smaller but instead there were very long queues…of shopping trolleys as workers were fishing them out from between the parked cars and alleyways around LuLu Hypermarket.
Many people buy food for Ramadhan as if the country was going to war and unfortunately most of the food they cook will become excess food and thrown in the rubbish.
This may change this Ramadhan, I don’t know, we will have to see
My mother, who is a typical Bahraini mother when it comes to generosity in food (cooking for an extra two people at each meal, more than two varieties of food at each meal, etc..) has started a radical change in her habits, and introduced a ’small bowl’ technique.
After having seen more than enough food being thrown in the rubbish, mostly rice, she started rationing plates of rice to each of our family members with a small bowl as measurement.
After doing this for a few times, she realized that almost a third of the rice was left untouched everytime, and now she cooks less rice, saving her the heartache of throwing away uneaten food and a few dinars along the way…
Will other Bahraini families follow suit? Time will tell..
Ramadhan Mubarak to you all!
Why would they change? They equal excess with generous.
I remember I had a fight with my wife once, she was at her father’s place and I was goinng to visit, I asked her how many sandwiches should I bring? she said 2.
When I arrived with two sandwiches she was like : “HO W DARE YOU?”
I’m like: “What??”
She wanted me to bring 2 or 3 sandwiches extra “Just in Case”.
I though it was stupid.
I still do.
And I hope Bahrain learns from your mum.
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