Helena Wang

Ramadan Day 8 (March 30, 2023):

One week of Ramadan has officially passed. This month is going by so quickly. Every year, when Ramadan ends, I always feel sad that the holy month has passed by. Sometimes, I feel like I didn’t really use this month to the best that I could to increase my faith. The good news is that it is the last day of school before spring break, so I can just sit back and relax and not have to worry about anything school related.

I could barely sleep the night before, so I was really tired when I got to school. After getting through the day and finally getting home and being done with school, it seemed like the world was trying to torture me. My entire instagram for you page (FYP) was full of delicious desserts and other food. Although this is going to seem weird, this happens all the time during Ramadan. I started craving store-bought chocolate chip cookies. Of course we didn’t have them at home, so I decided to take my chances and ask my sister to take me. Not very surprisingly, she said no.

Luckily, though, my mom was free at the time, and took me to the store. I rushed in, grabbed the cookies and came out, because there was just so much food everywhere. Now all I needed to do was wait to devour those delicious cookies. Today for iftar we ordered Middle Eastern food, and it was delicious.

Today was the first night I was going to another mosque, Al Azhar, for Taraweeh. This is always my favorite mosque to go too during Ramadan, because their Imam, or person who leads the prayer, always has such beautiful Quran recitation. While my feet hurt at the end, it was totally worth it.

Ramadan Day 9 (March 31, 2023):

Since it was the first day of spring break, I decided to sleep in after Sehri. I actually woke up at around noon, getting a good 12 hours of sleep. Today was Friday again, and as I mentioned in my previous diary entry, this is a holy day for us as Muslims. So after taking a shower and getting ready, my family and I went to the mosque to go pray the Jummah Prayer. I was shocked at the sheer number of people who came, as the entire building was packed full. Since it is a smaller mosque, it was so crowded that people were praying outside of the entrance of the prayer area.

After that, I worked on some assignments that I decided not to procrastinate till the end of spring break. Unfortunately, I messed something up on a project and got really frustrated with myself. Since I was fasting, my energy levels were already low, and after all that frustration, I decided to put it off till later.

Today, we were going to the weekly iftar at my local mosque. I was not volunteering today, so I did not have to go early to help set up. Since it was spring break, like at Jummah, there was a lot of people at the mosque. We all enjoyed talking with each other and catching up. We then prayed Isha and Tarweeh. Since Taraweeh is such a long prayer, if you don’t have enough energy, it can be very difficult. This happened to the person in front of me, who actually passed out during the prayer. Someone caught him, and he woke up a few seconds later. He was fine in the end, it was just a mixture of being overheated and not having eaten enough food.

Ramadan Day 10 (April 1, 2023):

Wow. One-third of Ramadan has already passed. In Islam, we believe that the first 10 days of Ramadan are the days of mercy. In these days, Allah shows the most amount of mercy. Now, we are entering the 10 days of forgiveness. In these days, Allah grants the most amount of forgiveness.

At this point during Ramadan, I am starting to feel like I am not doing enough. Funnily enough though, I was listening to a lecture about Ramadan, and the speaker talked about how you should take things slow with Ramadan. Don’t immediately do a million things, because then you will burn out. After hearing this I felt way better about myself.

Today was an interesting day to say the least. To start, I received some very good news about a club I had applied for. Then right after that, we found out that our basement has slightly flooded. The day before, there was very heavy rain and a tornado watch. Well, the rain got into our basement and the whole unfinished area was wet. In that room we had a lot of stuff like decorations, paint and more. So we all went down and tried to organize and move things, but since we were all fasting it was really difficult and everyone was just getting mad at each other. So we decided to do a little bit then, and then organize the rest later.

I finally completed those assignments from yesterday. Feeling very accomplished with myself, I decided to take a power nap. I ended sleeping till iftar. That tends to be a common trend during Ramadan. Today my mom made a traditional Pakistani dish known as Nihari. It was absolutely delicious.

Once we had come home from Taraweeh, I was not able to sleep since I had napped during the day. So I ended staying up all night watching Ramadan iftar recipes.

Ramadan Day 11 (April 2, 2023):

Today was an incredibly busy day. To start, I woke up at 9 a.m. This is very rare occurrence during Ramadan, and especially over spring break. I had invited all of my Muslim friends over for an iftar party at my house, so I had a lot of work to do. Doing this while fasting, turned out to be incredibly difficult.

I started my day by going to the grocery store with my sister and getting everything that I would need. Well, it turned out that I forgot to get some stuff, and had to go back again. I then starting making my dessert. Not being able to taste the batter, or know how sweet it is, was incredibly tortuous. Especially since my mom was cooking too, so the smell of food was just everywhere.

After finishing the food, I cleaned the kitchen with my mom, which drained everything out of me. Once everything was finally done, I went upstairs and watched this Ramadan Pakistani drama special. Every Ramadan, the Pakistani TV outlets make a special drama and it comes on during every day during Ramadan. Once I finished today’s episode, it was almost time for my friends to come, so I got ready.

I had a blast with all of my friends, some of whom I had not seen in a very long time. In Islam, it is said that if you give someone food to break their fast than you will get rewarded. That is why there are so many iftar parties during Ramadan since everyone wants that reward.

My mom drove all of us to the mosque to pray Taraweeh, but today I decided to leave after four Rak’a. A Rak’a is basically a section of the prayer. So in Taraweeh, at the mosque I go to, there are eight Rak’a and you pray two at a time.

Ramadan Day 12 (April 3, 2023):

I had a relatively simple day today. Of course, as you can probably guess, we started off the day by going the grocery store. We end up going very often during Ramadan. However after that, I really did not have anything to do and it was a really slow day. I felt very hungry near the end since I was so bored.

Since AP exams are nearing, I decided to start studying for them. However, studying during Ramadan turns out to be incredibly difficult and I just could not focus. I was able to start on at least some basic review of the first semester material, and reviewed some notes.

Since we were having leftovers today, I really did not have anything to do for the majority of the day. I attended a Zoom meeting with all of the youth volunteers for Al Salam and we discussed the itinerary for the fundraising gala the mosque is putting on during Ramadan.

After we broke our fast and were getting ready for Taraweeh, I noticed I had a lot of pain in my ankle. It was probably from standing for so long, but Taraweeh was incredibly difficult for me today.

Ramadan Day 13 (April 4, 2023):

Similarly to yesterday, nothing major happened to me today. We went to the grocery store, yet again. The reason we are going so much is because my mom is throwing a iftar party with all of our neighbors coming to it, and she constantly needs more stuff.

My sister and I made tiramisu for this iftar party, and put into the fridge, as it needs a day to cool. After we finished that, I called one of my cousins and we talked on the phone for a while to pass time. Throughout the day, the ankle pain from yesterday had not gone away. Going up and down stairs and walking around turned out to be a real problem.

Near the end of the day, we went to a car dealership to look at cars. This took a very long time and was very tiring, especially while having too fast. Once we got home, we broke our fast. Today, I was having Magoo’s Pizza, which is this amazing halal pizza place in Indianapolis.

When we went to Taraweeh, I won an Islamic trivia game they were playing, and won a cool t-shirt. Since my older sister was going back to Philadelphia in a few days, my family stayed up after Taraweeh and spent some time together.

Ramadan Day 14 (April 5, 2023):

I woke up at 9 a.m. today. That honestly put a damper on the rest of my day, as I was not able to go back to sleep. I also did not eat enough for Sehri, so I immediately started feeling hungry. After doing my daily trip to the grocery store, I proceeded to lay on the ground for an extended period of time since I had absolutely no energy whatsoever.

When my mom came home, I went upstairs for a little bit when I heard my sister start yelling. I went downstairs to find that our window sill had broken, and a whole lot of rain was leaking through it. This ended up ruining the back of our sofa, and got water everywhere. We ended up using Tupperware to catch the rain. We filled four whole containers before the rain stopped.

After all of that commotion we broke our fast. My mom was really tired today so we decided not to go to Taraweeh. I found these really good sugar cookies at Trader Joe’s so we just snacked on those throughout the night.

More diary entries available here.

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