Happy Ramadan-- So how would you like Fast Sunday to last for a month? And if they catch you snacking in public, you might get arrested.
I wondered about Ramadan but here I am enjoying it--well at least experiencing it. It's an Islamic practice--actually it's regarded as one of the Five Pillars of Islam. It's the 9th month of the Islamic calendar and lasts for a month. No drinking, eating, smoking or sex from dawn to dusk. For us foreigners, at least you can't do any of those in public. Three of those are easy (you can guess), but it's now over 100 degrees here so I have my hip flask for a little nip of water.
Muslim people are supposed to focus on spiritual things, read their scriptures, try to read the entire Quran if possible, and give to the poor. Sound familiar. They can have large meals before sun-up and after sunset, which often involves major parties. I went swimming at a nice hotel nearby. No one could tell if I was swallowing the water, so is that cheating? I didn't get arrested.
They also decorate the highways and downtown areas in (guess what) Christmas lights. Well, at least they look like our Christmas lights. Except there is a lot of purple and green. Actually it's pretty cool.
 |
| Store windows celebrating Ramadan--they like purple or violet |
 |
| A vendor's cart decorated for Ramadan |
Ronna is back in Logan-- She arrived in Utah on Thursday, greeted by Lindee, Cori and their kids, all wearing yellow shirts. I don't know if she has a phone yet and I don't think she's connected yet on email. But if you contact Lindee, she can help. Not everything went well on her flight home, but she's safe. We skyped Friday for a while, but my connectivity is so bad that it's difficult.
So I'm here alone. :( But I'm having some pretty incredible classes to teach. I'm teaching Appreciation of Art with 52 students, Cultural Development with 44 and a small Architectural Design Class. I teach all classes each day for 4 days and then have a 3 day weekend. So it's a lot of studying night before. It's been really fun. Comments by students in the Art Appreciation class were very uplifting. In answer to the written question on their first assignment of "Why are you taking this course?" came these responses.
"Well basically I had to take this course……up until today when you, sir, really changed my view….and really got me thinking about things in a different way".
"I need to finish the university, so need to take the course, but after the first lecture I am here because of this amazing lecturer and a class full of girls, he he !!"
The second student, named Fanous, is a bit of a smart aleck and after I showed an image of a painting by Mondrian he blurted out, "I could paint that in 3 minutes." I said, "Great, I'll give you the weekend and we'll see what it looks like…. and if it sells for over $40 million". I think he's going to do it and it will be fun to see. Their assignment was to describe how a work of art, including music, has touched them emotionally. I had described how several art, architecture and music experiences had brought me to tears. It's getting interesting.
The Culture Development class requires the students to find an issue or problem in their community and work on a solution for the semester. That is what I've been doing in Utah for the last 35 years or so. It should be a lot of fun also. I have kids fighting to get into the class now.
Our phone connection is down so I'd love to hear your comments or responses via email.
Miss you!
Tom
No comments:
Post a Comment