Wednesday, October 13, 2010

RAMADAN!!!! \m/

 22/9/10
 1837 (local time)

Right, so its been a bloody long time since I did one of these, so I had a bit of a sit down and chat with myself and thought it was about time that I wrote out about my life...

Shall we start off with Ramadan! Yes, that’s right I did a day of Ramadan, what is Ramadan I hear you ask, well it’s a Muslim celebration, where you fast for 1 month. During this period nothing, can pass your lips. So that means No Water and No Food! And when your working in an environment that involves spending stupidly long hours in the burning hot sun sweating and dehydrating all you really want is some water. 

I was encouraged to give it a try by one of the Egyptian fellas that works on the beach with us called Ahmed. So on Wednesday, (the second last day of Ramadan) he set a date to give it a shot.

It all really began on Tuesday after work, I headed to the local shop and bought some bread rolls, bickies, Nutella and some orange juice, the reason for this, is that I was going to wake up at 2.55am on Wednesday morning, to scoff myself with food for the rest of the day.

My alarm sounded at 2.55am, and I was actually quite excited, I had my food, took a quick poo, and went back to sleep and prepared myself for a day in stupidly hot sun without water and food.
My lesson went well; I had planned it well, so all I really did in my lesson was do an hour of teaching and 1 hour video session (aka minimal chasing/teaching).

After my lesson finished I was up for a free sail, so I rigged my 4.7 and put on my boardies and rashie, and didn’t really go for any tricks, instead I just was so content just blasting up and back.
Once my free sail finished I was put into the boat for an hour, I honestly thought this was going to be the toughest, but infact I just kinda hid in the boat out of the sun, and as long as my rash vest was wet and I felt cool, it wasn’t too bad, the boat duty went quite fast, but I now had to encounter my last obstacle ‘the TOWER’. Normally I don’t mind doing the tower at all, but it was now 1530 and I was absolutely knackered, I was hungry and tired, now for the people that know me well, know that this is a deadly combination... they get “Grumpy Steve”.

The seconds ticked by until I got told over the radio by Palmer that I could eventually come down from the tower...

... The last 30 minutes were the most exciting, and even though I was basically dead and just unable to do anything, it was great fun just getting all the food prepared, Ahmed one of the Egyptian boys had organised some lovely Egyptian food, with dips and chicken and salad and beautiful bread! The boys had told me that we eat and drink around 6pm, but it actually isn’t off time, you must wait till the sun is down and you hear the call to prayer where ‘the guy’ sings “Allah” 3 times quite loudly! This is when you make a wish/say a prayer and then CONSUME!

I started off with almost downing a complete litre full of mango juice, I stopped because Ahmed said that he has made the same mistake before and you end up totally filling yourself up on juice. But, that first taste of the mango juice on your lips was amazing! Then we all just tuck in and got fully involved in the chicken, salad, dips, bread the lot! It was unbelievable.

All in all, I think I will do Ramadan again, the things that are stopping me are that you have to pretty much write yourself off for that day, as you can’t function 100%.

In other news... we have had a complete changeover of staff, out with the old and in with the  new! Over the past 2 weeks we have lost John Yeomans and John Palmer, and to replace them we have Luke Bailey and Colin ‘Whippy’ Dixson.

The bloke that I got along with the most was John Palmer the centre manager, but hopefully we will catch up over in the U.K so I can hang out with his family. He has actually invited me to Christmas with his family if I have no where to go!

On that topic, I have just realised last week (13/9) that I’m pretty much unable to work out anywhere in the European Union, which means unless we do it on the down low, I wont be working a winter season, so who knows what ill be doing.

But having a think about it, I am over in England which is close to everything, so I could do a bit of travelling through Netherlands, Germany or even France, Italy... but the downside to this, is that ill probably be spending a bit of money, and wasting my UK working Visa.
My other option is to be a nanny, or even find a school where they want my services as a after school guy again? Which would be awesome!

Anyway, so that pretty much brings me up to date now... For all my parents and grandparents, you will be glad to know that I’ve been on a bit of detox this week, now I wasn’t going to go all out, but I have been somewhat ‘limiting’ myself as of late, and to be honest I’m feeling good! My day off wasn’t a complete waste of a day being hung over! So I’m pretty impressed with myself.
Alright then, thats almost it!
So until next time!
Take care my lovely’s!
BYEEE

PS: I threw in some photos of the past couple of months! Hope you enjoy!
xx

Launching the wrong flag!!

Biggest flag in Dahab!

Col (the cheif) and myself!

During one of the hour long speeches!

Forward flipping off the boat... didnt end well!

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