Having three sisters and a brother was always a challenge. A big household is always loud, entertaining and just plain crazy. Privacy was not allowed because basically the 175 meter flat you shared could not afford such luxuries. You never got to lie down on the living room couch, instead you had to sit upright and scootch to make room for other family members. Most of the time you were forced to watch on TV what the majority were watching. Your food choices were also decided by the majority. You often had to listen to five opinions at the same time if you wanted to share something.
I had gotten very accustomed to our loud, crowded home. I often hated it too. I sometimes just couldn't take any of the commotion, the TV on full blast, someone knocking on the bathroom urging you to speed up the process because they have to go too, the phone line that you never got to use because someone was always using it, your shared clothes, the huge amounts of chicken that you had to marinate, batter and fry to feed the entire household.
Living in a house with a lot of people is never easy, but living in a big house with just a few persons isn't easier. I just discovered that.
So two years ago we moved into a bigger flat. A much bigger one. The spacing inside the house was generous. Peace and quiet were words that people used to describe our house when they came to visit. The bathrooms were plenty. But in those two years, two of my siblings moved out to live with The Dad, one other got married. There was only one sister left, and ofcourse the mother. The transformation wasn't gradual. It was sudden. And I'm hating it.
I've started hating it most ever since Ramadan got here. Our Ramadans were different. We spent them stuffing Atayef together. A lot of girls in the kitchen, all together. Gathered around the table, chattering and stuffing a lot of atayef that we kept in the freezer all through ramadan, and fried in batches as needed. We watched the Yehia Fakharani soaps together, and displayed similar acts of emotion doing so. Watching the last episode together, and crying over the sad ending. Prayers was always done in jama'ah, you never worried about not having someone left to pray jama'ah with. Suhur was interesting, where one member of the family would go around with a giant jug of water, by all the beds, waking everyone up to have a drink, because naturally we would be unable to get up to have a proper suhur having to go to school and college and work the next day. We would take turns, on who would become the Sa'iya for the night.
This Ramadan is just very lonely. We don't really cook because there's no one really around to eat the food.
A pack of spaghetti lasts for three days. The house is always quiet. The beds have no one in them to wake up and give a drink of water to.
