Ramadan and 17th Birthday! (Sorry for being so late)

Long story short, I got caught up with life and I did not update the final two months of this blog. But here I am now! This is part one of the last two months. 

May and June were the best months of my entire exchange mostly because of Ramadan, Hari Raya (Eid), and my birthday. I really felt connected to my host family in these last two months. 

I began Ramadan with my extended host family, my favorite cousins from Singapore. I had originally come to Singapore to take my SAT that was not offered in Johor Bahru and my host grandfather who had traveled with me extended our stay for the first few days of Ramadan. I was determined to fast for the entire month because I did not know when I would have the chance to again. Every morning, I would wake up with Syafiqah (or rather I would wake up and Syafiqah would sit in bed until someone dragged her downstairs to eat) and eat a pretty simple breakfast of a couple pieces of chicken, rice, and a smoothie. I then would promptly head back upstairs and go to sleep again since I am not a morning person whatsoever and 5:30 am breakfast is not when I planned on waking up for the entire day. The first day of fasting I remember just laying in bed anxious for some reason simply because I knew that I could not eat or drink even if I wanted to. Thankfully, that feeling went away after a couple of hours. When I finally woke up, I would work on my online schoolwork until Sahira, Syafiqah, and Sya came home. Sometimes we would play monopoly, other times people would just complain about how hungry they were. Once, Sahira and I went out to a mall with my host grandfather Abahtok. We regretted this decision since the mall was filled with food that we could only smell and not eat. When it was time to buka puasa (break fast) everyone would eat one or two dates and a small cup of blessed water before digging in. You would think that everyone would eat a ton when iftar finally came, but unfortunately you feel full almost immediately. How depressing right? 

When I came back home and began fasting with my host family, we did things slightly differently. First, I slept through breakfast the first morning I was back in Johor with my family. I woke up alarmed when I realized it was in fact 8:15 am and not 5:30 am. At first I freaked out because I had not had anything to drink or eat and it would be a full 24 hours since I had last eaten before I would eat again. Amazingly, I made it through that first day and I made sure not to sleep through breakfast for the remainder of the month (oops I lied I did sleep through maybe two more times). At my house, although we did not have Syafiqah we did have Alisa who had an equal hatred of waking up super early. Alisa would walk downstairs to promptly fall back asleep on the couch before being urged to eat a piece of bread and drink a glass of milk before the sun rose. This always made me laugh. For iftar, we would either eat at home or go out to an event for dinner. Going out to eat required that we all dress traditionally which brought upon the first time in Malaysia that I wore a tudung. I personally hate how my face is shaped so I use my hair as a crutch to hide the sides of my face. Unfortunately, a tudung meant that I could not use my hair for this very purpose. So, for the first 9 months of exchange I had successfully escaped wearing a tudung outside of the house. However, I could not escape Ramadan. I am really glad that I ended up wearing a tudung a few times out in public because it forced me to face my uncomfortableness, which is what exchange is about. My exchange friends joined iftar a few times as well. Those were some of my favorite dinners. Carlo, who was not even fasting, was the most anxious to begin meals and would constantly check his watch every minute until the sun set. Somehow the eager waiting for dinner was actually a highlight of my exchange. 

Generally, fasting was pretty easy when I was around my host family because nobody was eating. However, there were a few times where I would be at the mall with Alberto and Carlo or at an event where people would be eating around me that were extremely difficult. I specifically remember sitting in a subway one evening practically dying as they ate a chicken sub. Another really difficult time was during a Buddhist holiday that the other exchange students and I attended. During Vesak Day, everyone was eating free noodles. That might have been the worst time, having to decline free food. As a broke teenager, you might be able to imagine how hard that was. 

My birthday was still during Ramadan so I could not eat that day. There was this one amazing Indian restaurant in our town that we all really liked that I wanted to order from. So on that day, we invited all of the exchange students as well as a few of my school friends and Alia’s friends to our house and I ordered more Indian food than needed (we were still eating it on the last day of Ramadan). Somehow, we had not coordinated with everyone about who was bringing a cake so I ended up ordering one, Alberto brought one, and Lorena bought another one. Needless to say, everyone was stuffed that evening. My host mom and dad were amazing and helped set up for my small 17th birthday and even let Alberto pop this celebration popper that made a huge mess in our dining room. The videos of my host mom laughing as Carlo used a small vacuum to get every single piece of confetti still makes me laugh. This was one of my favorite birthdays because I was surrounded by such a loving group of people that I had not even known a year ago. It was also my first birthday that I wasn’t with any of my natural family. I have always that 17 was going to be the best year of my life, so to start it with my host family who I loved and my close exchange group that I loved in Johor was perfect. 

Stay tuned for part two later this week!