Ramadan is the holy month in Islam, where all muslims don’t eat or drink from sunrise to sunset. Every year is different, this year Ramadan lands on May 27th. Each year Ramadan goes 10 days earlier than the previous year. The first day we started from 4:20am and we ate at 8:51pm; we fast for about 17 hours in a day. But do you think you can handle not eating and drinking all day?

For me, it takes a couple of days to get used to eating late dinners and waking up before 4 am to drink water and pray. It gets hard when you go to a school with no air conditioning and when you walk far places in the heat. When you are in a colder place, you don’t get too thirsty. I don’t mind if people eat in front of me because I’ll look the other way and call it a day. But if I see an ad with a huge juicy burger, my mouths starts to water and I want to have one.

While at home when fasting, I usually stay in my room with the air conditioning on high and I might fall asleep after I read a page or two from the Quran. I don’t like fasting during school because  it makes it hard for me to concentrate if I’m thirsty. Some people who eat in front of me feel bad and try to hide that they are eating so they don’t make me hungry, but I’ll tell them I can see you and it’s fine if you eat.

If you’re wondering why we can’t eat or drink from sunrise to sunset, there is a simple answer. We fast so we can have a feeling how the less fortunate people deal with everyday, not just a month, but all the time. Another reason why we fast in the holy month of Ramadan is to get closer to our religion and closer to Allah (god). That is why we fast every year and continue to do so.