Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Ramadan's Shofar

You learn something new every day. On my way to the wholesale clothing market last weekend, I was stuck in horrible traffic (nothing new there) and, as I gazed out the window, I realized that the street was lined with drums, made mostly of brightly painted oil drums. Turns out I was not simply stuck on drum street (shops tend to be grouped like that, so to stumble on the drum area actually seemed normal) - these are special holiday drums, bedug.
Bedug are large drums used in mosques to mark the end of the long day of fasting. The shofar of Ramadan, so to speak. Traditionally this is a wooden drum with one or both sides covered with goat or cow hides which come from the slaughtered animals on Idul Adha. Today they still use the hides, but the drums are made from almost anything that can be made into a drum.As it turns out, I was actually near the goat market, which, out of convenience, becomes drum row this time of year. I think we might have to buy one of the drums… would not want those poor little goats to go to waste, would we?

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