For my four cousins, aunt and uncle and my parents, Ramadan meant we all gathered at my grandparents' house in Cairo, no matter where in the world we were.
There were Gehan, Randa, Nermine and Mohammed, my first cousins. Having been an only child, to me they were my sisters and my brother, although I rarely saw them.
"Teta, Teta, when are Gigi, Dooda, Mina and Boodi coming?" I always asked, using my childhood nicknames for them and already knowing the reply.
"Ramadan," my grandmother, Suheila, would say.
Then there would be that slightest clue that Ramadan was really near. It was a hallway cupboard in our apartment in Cairo's Dokki District. As Ramadan neared, my grandmother would begin stocking up on the ingredients needed for the iftar meals.
The aroma of Qamar el Din, an apricot preserve much like a dried fruit roll-up, and of herbs and spices emanating from that locked cupboard signalled that my cousins soon would be coming.
"Teta, Teta, will they come today?" I asked every day.
She would say no, over and over, until she finally said yes.
The group would greet my grandfather, Najeed, by kissing his hand and his forehead. Prayers and fasting were non-negotiable, but my grandfather was not a strict disciplinarian. If he caught me sneaking a sip of water before sunset, he would half-smile, half-frown.
At iftar time, we would have a date to break the fast, then pray. We would then rush to the table but would not dare sit or get started until my grandfather sat first.
There would be the lentil or vegetable soup, goat with rice, grilled chicken, rabbit, pigeon or my favourite, Samboosak, a pastry filled with ground beef and vegetables.
I remember my aunt, Sarmad, telling me to slow down on the Samboosak and leave some for the others. That was met with my grandmother telling Hashim, our Sudanese cook, to make more.
Our grandfather took his time eating while my aunt made sure we minded our table manners, including not leaving the table until Gedo (Arabic for "grandfather") finished eating.
Then the shenanigans would start. In particular, Mohammed and I loved throwing things out of the fourth-storey apartment window.
Fast forward 30 years, and Gedo has passed away. Teta, now a great-grandmother, is in her 80s.
Mohammed lives in New York, where he works as an asset management executive, while Randa is a schoolteacher in Maryland and has two teenage boys. Nermine is a housewife and mother of four who lives in Riyadh; Gehan is a professional photographer and artist who lives in Paris.
Ramadan still brings us together, but instead of in Cairo, it is now Jeddah, with my Aunt Sarmad's house being where the family gathers. My cousins fly in from around the world with their children in tow and history repeats itself.
We laugh when Mohammed, Nermine's eldest son, wolfs down the Samboosak, prompting my aunt to have the cook prepare more.
We giggle when the kids cheat on their fast and get caught having a sip of water before sunset. Then we wait to see what mischief they will create, remembering ourselves when we were their age.
Many things have changed for all of us, but we can always count on Ramadan to remind us of all that has stayed the same.
@Email:ealghalib@thenational.ae
India cancels school-leaving examinations
Fourth-round clashes for British players
- Andy Murray (1) v Benoit Paire, Centre Court (not before 4pm)
- Johanna Konta (6) v Caroline Garcia (21), Court 1 (4pm)
Need to know
When: October 17 until November 10
Cost: Entry is free but some events require prior registration
Where: Various locations including National Theatre (Abu Dhabi), Abu Dhabi Cultural Center, Zayed University Promenade, Beach Rotana (Abu Dhabi), Vox Cinemas at Yas Mall, Sharjah Youth Center
What: The Korea Festival will feature art exhibitions, a B-boy dance show, a mini K-pop concert, traditional dance and music performances, food tastings, a beauty seminar, and more.
For more information: www.koreafestivaluae.com
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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'Young girls thinking of big ideas'
Words come easy for aspiring writer Afra Al Muhairb. The business side of books, on the other hand, is entirely foreign to the 16-year-old Emirati. So, she followed her father’s advice and enroled in the Abu Dhabi Education Council’s summer entrepreneurship course at Abu Dhabi University hoping to pick up a few new skills.
“Most of us have this dream of opening a business,” said Afra, referring to her peers are “young girls thinking of big ideas.”
In the three-week class, pupils are challenged to come up with a business and develop an operational and marketing plan to support their idea. But, the learning goes far beyond sales and branding, said teacher Sonia Elhaj.
“It’s not only about starting up a business, it’s all the meta skills that goes with it -- building self confidence, communication,” said Ms Elhaj. “It’s a way to coach them and to harness ideas and to allow them to be creative. They are really hungry to do this and be heard. They are so happy to be actually doing something, to be engaged in creating something new, not only sitting and listening and getting new information and new knowledge. Now they are applying that knowledge.”
Afra’s team decided to focus their business idea on a restaurant modelled after the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Each level would have a different international cuisine and all the meat would be halal. The pupils thought of this after discussing a common problem they face when travelling abroad.
“Sometimes we find the struggle of finding halal food, so we just eat fish and cheese, so it’s hard for us to spend 20 days with fish and cheese,” said Afra. “So we made this tower so every person who comes – from Africa, from America – they will find the right food to eat.”
rpennington@thenational.ae
TOURNAMENT INFO
2018 ICC World Twenty20 Asian Western Regional Qualifier
The top three teams progress to the Asia Qualifier
Thursday results
UAE beat Kuwait by 86 runs
Qatar beat Bahrain by five wickets
Saudi Arabia beat Maldives by 35 runs
Friday fixtures
10am, third-place playoff – Saudi Arabia v Kuwait
3pm, final – UAE v Qatar
Brief scores:
Toss: India, opted to field
Australia 158-4 (17 ov)
Maxwell 46, Lynn 37; Kuldeep 2-24
India 169-7 (17 ov)
Dhawan 76, Karthik 30; Zampa 2-22
Result: Australia won by 4 runs by D/L method
BUNDESLIGA FIXTURES
Friday (all kick-offs UAE time)
Hertha Berlin v Union Berlin (10.30pm)
Saturday
Freiburg v Werder Bremen (5.30pm)
Paderborn v Hoffenheim (5.30pm)
Wolfsburg v Borussia Dortmund (5.30pm)
Borussia Monchengladbach v Bayer Leverkusen (5.30pm)
Bayern Munich v Eintracht Frankfurt (5.30pm)
Sunday
Schalke v Augsburg (3.30pm)
Mainz v RB Leipzig (5.30pm)
Cologne v Fortuna Dusseldorf (8pm)
MATCH INFO
Tottenham 4 (Alli 51', Kane 50', 77'. Aurier 73')
Olympiakos 2 (El-Arabi 06', Semedo')
THE DETAILS
Deadpool 2
Dir: David Leitch
Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Josh Brolin, Justin Dennison, Zazie Beetz
Four stars
MATCH INFO
Qalandars 112-4 (10 ovs)
Banton 53 no
Northern Warriors 46 all out (9 ovs)
Kumara 3-10, Garton 3-10, Jordan 2-2, Prasanna 2-7
Qalandars win by six wickets
Bharat
Director: Ali Abbas Zafar
Starring: Salman Khan, Katrina Kaif, Sunil Grover
Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars
Uefa Nations League: How it works
The Uefa Nations League, introduced last year, has reached its final stage, to be played over five days in northern Portugal. The format of its closing tournament is compact, spread over two semi-finals, with the first, Portugal versus Switzerland in Porto on Wednesday evening, and the second, England against the Netherlands, in Guimaraes, on Thursday.
The winners of each semi will then meet at Porto’s Dragao stadium on Sunday, with the losing semi-finalists contesting a third-place play-off in Guimaraes earlier that day.
Qualifying for the final stage was via League A of the inaugural Nations League, in which the top 12 European countries according to Uefa's co-efficient seeding system were divided into four groups, the teams playing each other twice between September and November. Portugal, who finished above Italy and Poland, successfully bid to host the finals.
Three tips from La Perle's performers
1 The kind of water athletes drink is important. Gwilym Hooson, a 28-year-old British performer who is currently recovering from knee surgery, found that out when the company was still in Studio City, training for 12 hours a day. “The physio team was like: ‘Why is everyone getting cramps?’ And then they realised we had to add salt and sugar to the water,” he says.
2 A little chocolate is a good thing. “It’s emergency energy,” says Craig Paul Smith, La Perle’s head coach and former Cirque du Soleil performer, gesturing to an almost-empty open box of mini chocolate bars on his desk backstage.
3 Take chances, says Young, who has worked all over the world, including most recently at Dragone’s show in China. “Every time we go out of our comfort zone, we learn a lot about ourselves,” she says.
The Porpoise
By Mark Haddon
(Penguin Random House)