Ramadan Day 2

I successfully survived my first day of Ramadan. It had it's difficult moments, but was not as bad as I thought it might be. The worst parts for me were waking up early and feeling tired all day, feeling dehydrated during work, and not being able to taste the food I was making for dinner to check the seasonings. It's a bit odd to make a soup and not check the salt or seasoning content. Of course, we were so hungry by the time dinner rolled around that we had over cooked. I ended up making a soup, salad, stuffed peppers, and a casserole. It was of course waaaay too much food. But, now we know for tonight not to make the same mistake. Halfway through dinner both of us just couldn't eat any more. Yesterday while online I also found out that you are supposed to brush your teeth before the 5 am sunrise time. If you brush afterwards, the water going into your mouth may be considered cheating. So today, we had another early wake up, but slept in a little more till 430. Now that we know how long it takes to prepare breakfast, eat and brush our teeth, it was a little easier to plan for. I had a really hard time dragging myself out of bed this morning. My brain was still very tired, and was not giving the command to my feet that I wanted it to. However, we successfully managed to boil some eggs, set the table, and eat. After breakfast I felt sick. My stomach hurt from drinking so much water (I'm used to just a half a cup of tea at breakfast, not three glasses of water, a glass of multivitamin juice, AND a cup of tea...) I had to resist the urge to be sick when I lay back down to sleep again. Farid has informed me that this is a result of our stomachs still being full from last night's dinner, and then cramming more water and food in only a few hours later for breakfast. He said we should probably try to space the water a little better throughout the night, and not stuff ourselves too much for dinner time. So, a few trial and error will make this a bit more smooth. Yesterday I felt hungry at lunch time, but ignoring it made the feeling go away. I was able to concentrate on work to keep me a bit distracted, and when we got home, all that time in the evening that I would have used to cook dinner was used to catch up on washing the dishes. It ended up being kinda good for a distraction. When you get to the last two hours it can be a little hard to focus. So, washing the dishes took about an hour, then we cooked together. We had everything on the table ready to go, and then waited for the time to change for sunset.

As I am not Muslim, but wish to share in this experience, a good friend of mine has suggested that I include some form of daily meditation into my experience. As most Muslims use this month to do a little self purification, reflect, and teach themselves discipline, it would be good to share in some of the other experiences as well. I will not be praying multiple times a day, but I think after a 430am breakfast that a little meditation, controlled breathing, and clearing of the mind can be incorporated. I'm excited also that I'm not the only volunteer doing Ramadan in Azerbaijan this year. So I wish the others good luck, as we are all in this together!