Working women face uphill battle during Ramadan

Working women face uphill battle during Ramadan
By Mona Rahman

The blessed month of Ramadan has ushered in through the threshold with its trademark blessings, compassion and mercy. The new “culture” of Ramadan - consisting of elaborate meals - however, causes much inconvenience to working women in the Kingdom. After spending a day at work, these women have to rush home to meet the Iftar preparation “deadline” so that their families have a decent meal to sit down at and consequently miss out on the true spirit of the holy month.“I have to reach work in the morning just like normal days, where I handle my official schedule at the same time as planning and timing my cooking duties,” remarked Nasreen Khaled, a Saudi woman working in a bank in Jeddah. “After reaching home, I get no time to rest and have to quickly set the dinner table for Iftar.“Ramadan is about devoting time to spiritual activities and worship, but unfortunately, during the evening I have to look after my twins who are below the age of three, so cannot offer Tarawih prayers or go out anywhere.”There’s not much a working woman can do, moreover, if her husband insists on getting the more elaborate delicacies to eat during Iftar, and or some couples, this is a major source of contention during the holy month. “My husband loves food and prefers a variety of dishes, especially sweets like rice pudding, kunafa and amli, all of which are very time-consuming to make and I can only make during the weekends,” said Khaleda, a Syrian woman working for a private organization in Riyadh. She added that this puts her husband into a bad mood.One solution that an increasing number of women are turning to is finding a cook who will handle the Iftar and Suhoor responsibilities, and some women are even considering the contribution of their generous mothers to the Iftar.Farida Al-Fawaz is a Saudi operation supervisor at Khaleejia Investment in Riyadh, and she told Saudi Gazette that she reaches home well after 4 P.M., leaving her so tired that she has now invested in a domestic helper and gets occasional help from her mother in the form of favorite dishes sent over for Iftars. She also relies on her mother during the weekend, when the family gets together and the latter does all the cooking so that her daughter can rest.“Prior to the start of Ramadan, I prepare things and freeze them so that it’s easy to cook them on weekends when my helper is not around,” she said. “I buy sambosa leaves and fill them with mince meat, potatoes; or buy spring roll sheets and fill them with chicken and freeze it all for convenience.”Finding a domestic helper for Ramadan, however, is both a highly expensive and frustrating ordeal as they are in high demand throughout the month. Noura is a doctor working in Al-Khobar and she told Saudi Gazette that: “I have a time consuming job, often entailing long hours, extending beyond my duty hours, and I reach home just before Iftar time I and unable to do the cooking myself. I have no choice but to hire a cook during the month, but she charges double than she should - 2,000 Saudi riyals.”A cheaper solution most women seem to prefer is to hire the services of delivery women who make popular Iftar food items at home and sell them at offices and homes, though they are sometimes discouraged by doing so. The delivery women sell frozen packs of sambosas, rolls, and waraq anaa - often at the charge of one Saudi riyal per piece.Umm Sara is one such professional cook and delivery woman and she told Saudi Gazette that she gets her supplies from the supermarket in the evening and prepares the items of food the next morning so that the packets can be delivered on time and well before Iftar. “I used to supply them at schools but since it’s the holidays, I visit ladies’ sections in banks and offices and supply customers with packets of frozen food,” she remarked. “Often they make purchases of approximately 50 Saudi riyals, and sometimes I’ll be delivering somewhere while my driver will be delivering elsewhere. This is why I can earn in a righteous manner.” – SG

Remembering the month of Ramadan that was

Remembering the month of Ramadan that was
By Mona Rahman

The observance of Ramadan in the Kingdom has been replaced by a flip-flop culture over the years with modifications in the Iftar, Suhoor and activities contributing to positive as well as negative changes in people’s daily lives.Paying charityIn the past, a key factor of Ramadan was fund collection within mosques through unregistered local organizations or charities. This practice has since been banned by the Saudi government, and now all organizations need to be registered, approved by the government and regularized, with the option to pay directly through the bank. “Now all charity is done through aukawf, through the Ministry of Religious Affairs,” said Mohammed Siddique Al-Ansari, Imam of a mosque in Riyadh. “Charity is not allowed to be collected anywhere else, or by any individual or organization.” All charitable organizations have their own bank account numbers and are easily distinguishable as INSAN bank accounts in the Kingdom to ensure that money for charity is not diverted into “wrong hands” or exploited for non-charitable purposes, he added.He did, however, advise people to return to the roots of charity-giving and consider needy relatives and friends before giving the money to a bank. “That way it will remain sadaqa and silla instead of just sadaqa,” he said.Eating outPeople now increasingly opt to have Iftar in restaurants as a mode of resorting to comfort and convenience instead of preparing food at home. Some even prefer catering services and sign a month’s contract with them for the duration of Ramadan. “Women in particular, who are exhausted with demanding housemaids or are working, prefer to have Iftars in restaurants to avoid the usual toil of cooking,” said Masood Ahmad Puri, Manager of La Sani Restaurant in Jeddah. “Everyone gets the monthly booking done prior to Ramadan; Saudis as well as expats bring their relatives and guests for Iftar parties, and now people invite their guests for Suhoor too.” He added that the past two years, especially, have seen an increase in eating out during Ramadan.UnityRamadan in the past was characterized by a sense of unity amongst people with Iftar and Suhoor becoming social affairs where entire families would come together to eat and pray. Now, however, both occasions have largely become private affairs with members of one family often eating at different times and alone, despite living together.“The special aroma of food and qahwa were a fragrance of togetherness that could be experienced 20 to 25 years back in every neighborhood,” reminisced Baqi Eskander, a 70-year-old Saudi pilgrim guide in Makkah. “Saudis lived together and participated in feasts together, contributing any food they had, but now my eyes long to see those days again.“Families have split and people have become engaged in solely earning money. Before, they used to support each other, and now each person is just restricted to his own needs.”Mad scramble for goodsAnyone who has gone grocery shopping in the past couple of days will testify that it has constituted nothing short of a mad scramble to buy goods. Supermarkets in major cities are teeming with customers who are in a rush to stock up on things like sacks of rice and bottles of cooking oil as if nothing will be left to buy later.“From the time a few days are left to Ramadan - before the new moon is even sighted - people start rushing here and there, rushing to buy things,” remarked Abdul Qadir, a 70-year-old Syrian man in Riyadh. “Supermarkets have commercialized Ramadan through their promotions, and customers buy a lot more because of those. It seems like a month of feasts has been ushered in instead of fasting. In the past, people devoted more time to worship and ate what they got.”It’s time to relax?Another disturbing phenomenon is the greater inclination in most people to eat lots of food, watch lots of TV, stay awake all night and do all their chores after sunset. A false perception dominates that Ramadan is a month of lethargy and relaxation. “People stuff themselves with heavy, oily food and even decorate their tables with fancy trimmings, which isn’t the true spirit of Ramadan and didn’t even exist a few decades back,” said Tamer Hussain, a 67-year-old Egyptian in Jeddah.Living conditions during past Ramadans were such that most people worked normal eight-hour (or more) days but standard working hours have now been reduced to six in almost all offices. “Years back, thirst and hunger never slowed people down; they still exhibited the same energy while going to work,” said Mahmoud Abbas, a 62-year-old Pakistani living in Madina. “We used to get up for Fajr prayers and then set off to work, but the new generation blames Ramadan for the lack of work and postponement of tasks.”These days, the post-Tarawih prayers’ period constitutes of jam-packed roads as people flock to malls and other recreational centers. It is a much better alternative to watching TV at home, but 26-year-old Syed Nabeel Hassan remembers his childhood in the Kingdom with nostalgia, when there were no satellite channels, Internet and hardly a computer in every home.“We used to watch two local channels, which were the best in Ramadan because they used to air special variety shows,” he reminisced. “After Tarawih prayers, we used to go out and play football, volleyball, board games and table football with our friends. But now young people have been introduced to other activities like watching satellite channels, surfing the Internet.”“Ramadan has lost its true spirit; people even start shopping for Eid from the 15th day of Ramadan onward, even though all Eid shopping was always done in the last few days of Ramadan. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be wrong to start calling Ramadan a month of fashion in the future,” he concluded. – SG