On our second night in Indonesia, we were awakened at 2:15am by much enthusiastic drumming. Male voices accompanied the rhythm, a mixture of elementary boys and teens. They were all sing-shouting at the top of their voices, “Sahur! Sahur!... (I don’t know enough Bahasa nor Arabic to make out the song they are singing). Everyone sang in a different enough key that it was impossible to make out key or melody. Yet, even my jet-lagged sleepy self could not miss the exuberance in their voices. The voices went down our street as far as they could, turned around, and came back for a second round.
We arrived in Indonesia during Ramadan, the month of the fast from sun-up to sundown. Muslims traditionally break the fast at 6pm (called Iftar). Many Muslims eat again at 2:30am to avoid getting “hangry” during the fast, and this practice is called Sahur. We found out that night that getting the neighborhood boys together to wake the neighborhood for Sahur is a time-honored Indonesian tradition that can last through the whole of Ramadan.
On the second night, my curiosity roused me enough to go outside and watch them go by. Approximately twelve boys passed me, led by a few waving large political flags (I assume they were more for flag waving than politics, since those waving were no older than middle school children). Behind the flag bearers was a hand cart holding two large, blue inverted plastic barrels. The drummer beat upon them with a pair of actual drumsticks. Surrounding all of this were excited boys and young men telling the neighborhood to rouse themselves from sleep for Sahur. Some of the smaller boys were jumping up and down in excitement as they shouted their message, reminiscent of soccer players who celebrate with their fieldmates after scoring a goal.
Our local Sahur garage band typically starts at 2:15am and ends by 3:30am. This starts a chain of events that only stops at 6am. If I’m lucky, I can reclaim an hour or two of sleep afterwards. Even after two weeks of it, I can’t really bring myself to resent losing so much sleep. Who am I to stand in the way of divinely-sanctioned “h-anger” prevention? I, too, would be excited to venture with my peers in the dead of night and noisily waken my community in service to Allah. I’m sure many disagree with me, but I’m glad they’ve made the most of their divine sanction. As an older adult male, no one encourages me to make joyful noises, for anyone.
Coda
Two nights ago, the Sahur garage band had grown in both volume and numbers. Perhaps the local mosque leader received too many complaints about their lack of vocal cohesion, because the band brought a stereo that clearly played the chant they had been sing-shouting nightly for two weeks. For the first time, everyone sang in the same key simultaneously.
It was honestly nowhere near as interesting. Something about the infectious joy evinced by shouting an atonal chant at top volume took away the sting of waking up. The magic was gone, but I returned to bed amused that I actually cheered more when no one could sing.