Sounds of water gallon beating and people starts shouting “Sahur..sahur !” a longway down to crossroad, trying to wake people for “sahur (the predawn meal). Some of you might wonder what is going on, why Indonesian have breakfast very early or may be some of you already what I would to talk about. Yes that’s true, as world’s largest Muslim population, celebrating Holy Month of Ramadhan or fasting month in Indonesia is obligatory only for moslem adult men and women, excluding young children, wanderer, the elderly and menstruating or pregnant women to name a few.
Fasting
The practice is believed to bring faithfulness closer and seek for absolution to Allah and we have to withstand from fulfilling human’s desire such as drinking, eating, smoking, sex, doing a bad things at this time other bad habits like lying, arguing, using bad language should also be avoided to build self-discipline otherwise Moslem believes our fasting will just fruitless and not accepted by Allah so we are obliged to restart delegitimated fasting (upon our belief) as many as we had. It also has reflective message for Moslem to appreciate food they’ve already got and distribute them to the needy guy instead of disposing them off and be thankful for fortune for whom still be able to choose what to eat in the sunset whilst 13% of the population is undernourished.
The markets open
The fast starts before sunrise at Imsak (the start of the daily fast), we have to stop from sipping from our drink then prepare for Subuh (dawn prayer) and finally ends with the prayer call of Maghrib (sunset prayer). Ramadhan falls during the ninth month of Moslem calendar, which is based on lunar cycle of 29 or 30 days varies from year to year. More less after 11 hours fasting, many new pop-up markets established along the way of sidewalk offer light delicacies and drinks. ‘Es buah’ or indonesian iced fruit cocktail is must-have drink to break the fast among Indonesian, costs quite cheap IDR 10,000 ($1) for the small until medium one topped with bunch of tropical fruits like watermelon, honeydew, cantaloupe, pineapple and papaya then we have ‘Kolak’ is indonesian dessert based on sugar palm-fruit, coconut sugar, coconut milk and pandanus leaf topped with banana and freshened ice cube . Other than, several mosque give a takjil, is the term we use to call every snack for break-fasting, it can be sweet porridge or ‘gorengan’is snacks made of various ingredients like vegetables, tofu, tempeh (fermented soy-cake) coated with flour batter. Then most of moslems will do sunset prayer and gather with the family. Anyway are you drooling enough to see this Indonesian dessert ? If so, come to our field station and I will treat you !!!
Ahmad Ardiansyah
