Latepost : Ramadhan Experience

by: Desi Hardianti

A Whole New World: Ramadan in the New Horizon

This year's Ramadan has left a very deep impression in my life, for I have been granted something from Allah that I must face with both gratitude and patience. In short, I am stepping on a new chapter in my life with all the challenges presented while taking on this adventure being myself that is always thirsty of knowledge.

First, I am taking on a new role as a wife. So, my days are filled with a routine of a queen in her king’s palace. That is not to say that I do nothing but looking deep into a cellphone screen; it means that I have to do chores and run errands like a housewife. Now this is my farming field to earn merits from Allah.

Second, the Covid-19 global pandemic hit the world, meaning that all activities have to be carried out at home, in an instant. There is a sense of sadness as I cannot perform tarawih fully in the mosque. This is in fact my target for this year’s Ramadan to be able to perform tarawih the entire nights at the mosque with my husband. This adds to the demise as in the previous years I could not perform tarawih entirely at the mosque due to a tight work schedule.

However, regardless of how bad the current situation might be, I have to continue striving to make the most of this year’s Ramadan and make it far better than the previous ones. Speaking of my activities in this year’s Ramadan, I can tell you there are so many different and new things. This is especially true when it comes to the role shift from being “single” to being “double”, aka, married. This has led to the realization that my business now has turned into a family business for which I have to take responsibility as a wife.

This holy month of Ramadan is the first training month for me to perform fasting together as a husband and a wife, reciting the Quran together, and performing tarawih together at home. This is perhaps my own version of “romantic”. In addition to the spiritual experiences that I do during Ramadan, I have to also of course make time to do house chores.

Every day I cook different dishes for breaking fast and sahoor. This is something that I find new and different. I'm a Padangnese whose cuisines are never too far from spicy and soup-based food. My husband, on the other hand, is a Sundanese. So we undoubtedly have different tastes when it comes to food. This realization was quite a surprise to me in the beginning of our marriage. I myself was not very good at cooking before; however, having been married, surely I could not just rely on buying food outside all the time.

I started out by trying to learn how to cook by looking for new recipes in an app on my cellphone. A variety of dishes along with relevant materials and ingredients could be found there. Every time I cook, I ask my husband what kind of food he likes or would like to eat. More often than not, he replies that it should be dishes with a strong taste. I tried to cook various kinds of food with many different herbs and seasonings without leaving out the signature ethnic taste of my hometown which is identical to them being spicy.

However, gradually my husband began to tell me that he preferred dishes involving a great deal of stir-fried vegetables and less soup-based. I, on the other hand, like simple dishes better, complete with soup and broth. Well, so I scoured my brain every day to make dishes that would suit the Sundanese people’s taste. Day after day, I got used to cooking what people would think of dishes with signature Sundanese taste.

Looking on the bright side, my ability, or say, creativity in cooking this Ramadan is getting better. I keep on trying to make dishes involving more vegetables. This sort of dish is a must-have menu to maintain body condition so as not to become dehydrated while fasting. Some examples are sayur bening (clear soup), stir-fried vegetables like cap cai, or soup with coconut-milk like lodeh. Oftentimes I put my nose deep in cooking apps for recommended menus every time I want to cook.

Cooking becomes something that is fun for me, although sometimes I also get confused on what to cook. In order for me not to be too confused, I often ask for my husband's opinion about a new dish he wants to try. I often get ideas from my husband, more or less.

Not willing to only be engrossed in household chores, being a thinker, I am also keen to develop my knowledge and keep on learning my entire life. That is just one of my life principles. I was like “Let my husband be busy with his Work From Home (WFH) activities; I’d take an online class for Writing on WhatsApp organized by the leader of Komunitas Literasi in my hometown Padang Panjang”. I have been dreaming of writing a book, whatever the genre is. Alhamdulillah right here right now Allah has answered my prayers.

Being in this writing community makes you feel like learning as a student who knows nothing about the world of writing. The first materials taught were about punctuations in writing, setting the orientation and size of the layout, spacing, and margins for our writing. What is remarkable is that this class always has awesome expert guests for short stories, poetry, as well as fairy tales and children's poetry. The poetry class has even invited expert guests that have some of their works known well abroad.

I have to say that I could not always access the class material at the exact time when it was released as the schedules often clashed with my cooking schedule. The members of this class consist of people from various regions in Indonesia and other countries such as Germany and Malaysia. All of us group members should be more than just passive "viewers", meaning we are also required to submit an assignment following the presentation from the expert guests.

The first assignment I had in this class was telling a story about the creative writing process. Basically I needed to describe the process of how we grew the interest in writing. The second task was making a short story. The third one was making poetry. However, I haven't had the chance to do this last task because writing poetry requires good imagination. When I saw some poems sent by friends from the writing class group, I became a little embarrassed to send my own poems. Even so, as a good student, I had to still do the task, right? But yeah, I haven’t done that. I will. I promise. :-D

What is unique about this writing class is how we all are open as learners to give critique –- as opposed to criticism, suggestions, and insights about the work made. Everyone is given the freedom to express their opinions in accordance with the rules of the writing class, whether in terms of the content of the writing, punctuation, or other constructive suggestions. At the end of each conversation, we must write down our names and the city where we come from so that we know each other better.

I really feel the spirit of learning as oftentimes we need to be supported by people who have the same passion as us so that when we feel bored or tired, there are brothers and sisters who remind us to get back up. In this group, I also find members who are also housewives like me remain active in writing.

My activities as a housewife and learning activities in writing class are two sides of me that do not contradict each other. As long as I am still able to manage my time between being a wife and being a student, I can make both works. I believe that by continuing to occupy ourselves with good activities, we will further develop and make the most of the month of Ramadan to get merits from Allah.

What I really miss these days are such activities as hiking, especially to places that I had originally planned but had to cancel. But I am sure that behind all the events that occur at this time there is always the best wisdom that Allah has given us as His servants. Whether it is a way to strengthen the bond with our family by doing a variety of activities at home, or as a way to focus on learning from various online forums on social media, or to improve our worship to Allah as a means of increasing the capacity of faith, we have been granted time to do it all.

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