10 minutes before Iftar

A sudden rush occurs on the doors of Qat sellers, and on the streets. People are buying Sambusa and lemon juice from the stands opened recently on the sides of the road, people in such a hurry to the mosque with their food. People dig their way out of the rush just to get home on time before Azan.

First, the qat need to be bought, maybe from the usual dealer, or maybe someone else. Qat sellers are more like a stock broker on Wall Street, phone calls demanding to save their share of qat, and customers requesting to receive the finest bag of qat with a good price.

With an empty stomach, the fasting people are heading to the sweets shop, seeking the traditional sweets of Sana’a, which are also from a Turkish origin. The customers asking for the freshest sweets, and viewing their choices, but (The Rawani) is still their best choice. Everybody orders Rawani, and perhaps beside the Rawani they order Malt drink (Halal of course), and some other side dish sweets.

Sambusa, the triangle paste sheets stuffed with minced meat, or vegetables are n essential item in Ramadan, you can not break fasting without it. But best know shops are very crowded, so one must get ready to rumble. Digging your way into the crowds outside the Sambusa shop, shouting your tonsils out, hoping you will be noticed by the shop employees, and get served faster than the rest of the crowd.

Then, one rushing his steps, people runs towards the lemon juice stands. And buy a bottle of not so freshly made lemon juice.

Qat is bought, sweets are bought, Lemon juice and Sambusa are bought, now what left is to get to home intact. During their attempt to reach home, people either curse or cursed by others, the traffic jam starts to get lighter, yet the horns, the curses and speed increases. And words like (Oh Allah, I am fasting) can be heard, but the words imply that he wanted to give you a very heavy curse, but he is holding this curse to protect his fasting.

On the other hand, many people are really protecting their fasting, by calming down, and waiting patently for the Azan.

Marwan al-Sebaei says that these moments are the tensest moments for him. “Listening to Yemen’s favorite Qur’an reader during Ramadan, Mohamed Hussein Amer reciting the Qur’an and people are on their way to the mosque, I just feel excited at that time, and feel happy that I will break fast soon and look to the horizon to see the colors of sun going red with the clouds, then I go to the mosque,” said al-Sebaei.

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