Once, a few years ago, all the Muslims in our building at work invited us to join them for one day of Ramadan. It was VERY hard, and that was when it fell in November (short days here in Scotland) and they were kind to us and said we should sip water if we wanted to. I didn't but it was seriously really hard. The thirst was the worst. I do think the prayers make a difference to those making them as it is a part of the day which you can look forward to, which breaks up the hungry/thirtsy hours a bit more. Us one-dayers just sat around working slowly and saying how thirsty we were... LOL. The most wonderful part was, at the end of the day, we all went to the conference room (sunset was at 4.40pm) and broke fast together with dates and then a really wonderful meal cooked for us by those women and their mothers and MILs and brought in. It really showed me so much about Islam, about the sense of community and love within the Faith. As an outsider if you asked me what Islam was about i would say peace, light, brotherhood (or sisterhood) and love. I'm possibly way off! LOL

Bec