Turkey and The Ramadan

Few days ago, I was doing my Cross Cultural Communication assignment and one of my team partners is from Turkey, so when she was explaining the turkish culture I was taking note of every detail not only because it was part of the assignment but also because it is a very interesting culture and most of the things that she was telling us, were new for me.

One of the most interesting things turkish culture has is Ramadan. I had already heard about this muslim tradition but never from a turkish person, so it was quite interesting the way she was telling us how it worked.

Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, which lasts 29 or 30 days. During this month, muslim people do not eat and drink during daylight hours and is intended to teach Muslims about patience, spirituality and humility  to God (Allah), and they also pray more than usual. 

The most similar thing that the catholics as me have is the "Lent" which last 40 days and consists of a period of reflection, where many of the faithful commit to fasting and giving up to ceratin types of luxuries or things that we like a lot. Even though this could be similar to the turkish tradition, the Lent is not practiced by everyone as in the muslim religion, I mean is not so rigorous.

For Muslim people is the most normal and common thing in their lives and for sure It's something that must be done, of course there are some exceptions, but it is a tradition that families always practice. It's not like in catholicism, where the rules are allowed  to break, I mean, if one day out of 40 I eat in the morning, it's fine. Actually, I'm catholic and I don't usually do anything especial for these days, I just stop eating meat every Friday.

As you can see, every country has its own particular things, which is amazing but also kind of weird. I always think about how other people would see my culture. I guess they also might see many differences.