I couldn't resist to wish some of my friends a happy Ramadan, it's good and nice that there is Ramadan. I even thought of starting fasting myself aswell, but I don't know. Me and my parents used to do it when I was a kid, I think I was six or seven. It was the time before celebrating Easter. We ated though but the meat and the candy were not allowed, and we didn't call it Ramadan but just fasting, 'AsWoensdag.' In English it's called 'Lent' I think.
Wikipedia: Lent or Quadragesima is the period beginning on Ash Wednesday in preparation for Easter. The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer through prayer, repentance, almsgiving and self denial for the annual commemoration during Holy week of thce Death and recurrection of Jesus.
The fasting takes 46 days, 40 days they/we will be fasting, only not on the six Sundays. My little Family took this serious when I was still little but later on we were cheating more and more, don't know why, I guess the society changed alot. People were going more less to the church then they used to. My Mom and Dad were going every Saturday or Sundays, then after a while we were going less, only on Christmas or Easter for example. I didn't mind though, cause I was still young, I didn't know yet. Later on when I got older I went to the Church a bit more often, don't know why. But I liked it, and I thought it was good to pray. Perhaps I needed it back then.
Ramadan will surely be celebrated in Holland, we have lots of Islamic people around here.
Wikipedia: The history of Islam in the Netherlands started in the 19th century when the Netherlands experienced sporadic Muslim migration from the Dutch East Indies when it was a colony from the Netherlands. Economic growth from 1960 to 1973 lead the Dutch government to recruit large numbers of immigrant workers, chiefly fromTurkey and Morocco, and migration has continued by way of family reunification and asylumseekers. Data from 2011 show that the Netherlands hosts an estimated 1,219,753 Muslims, including approximately 488,164 Turks and 349,270 Moroccans. Most of them live in the four major cities of the country, Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam and Utrecht.
There are about 400 mosques in the Netherlands, with about 200 Turkish mosques, 140 Moroccan mosques and 50 Surinamese. There are about 45 Islamic elementary schools, and two high schools. In Holland are living 850.000 Muslims, Holland is a small country but with a very big heart, LOL!
Anyway, back to this day.This day started of slowly, I woke up at 5:30 am and turned around. Then I woke up at 6:30 am and turned around again, woke up again at 7:30 am and then I stood up. I was cold and it was grey outside, the weather forecast said 24 degrees but, oh wel,l I guess it was still early. This morning I did some cleaning together with another resident, I felt tired afterwards. I cleaned all the stairs with a broom and the other resident came after me with a wet floorcloth. I went for a nap after the cleaning, I was exhausted, and decided to take it easy the rest of the day. I want to eat more healtier aswell, more fruit and veggies. Perhaps I will leave the coffee and start to drink more tea.
Hmm, coffee versus tea, don't know what's healtier though, they say tea is good for the heart. I know coffee gives me a bad taste in the mouth but that's all I know, LOL! Coffee ain't that bad I guess, I think one coffee a day is fine for me. I went to the store after my lunch and bought fruit and milk, quit expensive the fruit, damn! three peers, two kiwi's, banana's, apples, two packages of milk and one package cheese, costed me 9 Euro. (Grr!) Alright, I'm off to the free dinner, I'll be updating tomorrow.
