The preparations going into Ramadan were always more mental than physical. Knowing that you are not going to get to eat anything until exactly 6:59 PM or whatever time the sunset happens to be on that day. A friend of mine said this past week that he never feels hungry during Ramadan, and on a normal day, he would have needed some coffee at least by his first class.

While I don’t agree with him (my hunger happens in waves, attacking me around lunchtime, resting until right before iftaar, or the opening of the fast), I can completely understand what he’s talking about. For some reason, even though I’m still hungry, I won’t have any sort of inclination to combat the hunger or thirst. I let it mull around in my stomach, enticing it even while I’m cooking my iftaar food (which always end up being a little too salty because you can’t taste anything).

And then there are the precautions that you end up developing. Waking up at suhr, the meal before the fast in the time before the prayer at sunrise, and drinking half a day’s worth of water and eating as much protein as you can to last you through the day. Taking a nap after class or work and before sunset, letting your body rest a little to catch up with the rest of you. All of the little physical things that assist you mentally.

Sometimes, Ramadan gets difficult for me, it’s true. There were times, when I was younger, when I had found it cruel or pointless. When I lapsed into these moments, my father’s voice would come into my head. He always used to say that we should think of the child that keeps his or her fasts every day of the year. That this child does not even get to eat when the sun goes down. There are millions of these children all over the world, whose malnourishment fully exceeds my own. And then even though throughout the day I may face slight bouts of dehydration, it is nothing compared to the mass of people in the world facing hunger and thirst, whether Muslim or not.