So the other night I woke up at about 3:30 to strange drumming outside my house. I listened as it got closer, seemed to pass directly under my window and then moved off into the distance. I thought I might just be imagining it or that there was just some crazy guy drumming in the early morning hours (they have much less respect for noise restrictions here).
But then I heard it again a few nights later.
And then I heard it again last night. I have formulated a theory: it is a Ramadan wake up call. Peshkopi is theoretically 98% Muslim. This doesn’t appear to mean too much around here, religion not really being a very dominant force in life in Albania. I very rarely see any covered women or any other clear signs of the religion here, although the mosque does do the call to prayer 5 times a day. Right now happens to be the holy month of fasting- Ramadan. During Ramadan, faithful followers fast during the day. This means that in order to eat breakfast, they have to get up to eat well before the sun. So my theory is that the drummer is someone going around town in order to wake people up before sunrise-kind of like a town crier, errr drummer or a communal alarm clock (because apparently the normal in the bedroom type alarm clocks are not reliable???). Ok, so that’s my theory.
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3 comments:
What, no roosters?
no silly, of course there are roosters. In fact, I think that this drumming guy might actually wake up the roosters (he definitely wakes up the dogs). But the roosters don't usually start until about 5 and as I have learned, you actually have to start the fast at the "brink of dawn" which is actually more than an hour BEFORE sunrise, hence the 3am wakeup.
Hello, I like this blog.
Sorry not write more, but my English is not good.
A hug from Portugal
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