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Local Betoota Ponds-based Muslim, Graham Warne (29) says he couldn’t have imagined a more expensive Holy Month.
As a hibernating restaurant waiter, not only is he living off JobKeeper, but it’s made worse by the fact that he doesn’t have the same access to his mum’s cooking as he usually would during Ramadan.
He also lacks any form of domestic skills, so short of eating nothing but two minute noodles each evening for 30 days, he’s had to enlist some outside help.
Ramadan is the holiest month on the Muslim calendar. It’s a month of fasting between dawn and sunset, where followers can only feast after dark.
In Australia, it’s meant to be a time of spiritual reflection, connection to community and showing off traditional cuisine to white hipsters who make the trek out of the city to their neighbourhood markets.
However, this year, Graham isn’t able to appreciate anything other than the spiritual reflection – and the only community he is connecting with is the underpaid wage slaves who work for UberEats and Deliveroo.
While social isolation during COVID-19 is being viewed by the greater public as a good time to learn how to cook new recipes and focus on a bit of self-care, Graham reckons that by simply taking part in Ramadan – he should be excused from the societal pressure to better himself domestically.
This is why Graham’s street now hosts a peloton of food delivery cyclists at sunset each night, as he opts to rely on someone else’s mum’s cooking when it is time to break fast.
Graham’s neighbour, Sandra, an 82-year-old pensioner says if it wasn’t for the strong aroma of chicken and garlic, she might have thought a drug dealer had moved in next door.
“There’s someone at the door every hour” moans Sandra.
“You can forgive me for assuming the worst. I didn’t know he was Muslim”
“But, when you’ve got a skinny bachelor like him eating three pizzas, a burrito and a bucket of chicken each night – you’ve gotta assume there is some marijuana involved”
