Up until six months ago, Hermawati Ernie Charmadi and her family were living comfortably in Kuala Lumpur. They moved to Canada, however, when she was posted to Calgary. Hermawati works for an oil and gas company.
Calgary, is a city in the province of Alberta, Canada. Its growth as a city is attributed to its oil industry so much so that it is has earned the status of the “centre of Canada’s oil industry” (according to Google) with a cosmopolitan population of 1.336 million (as of 2017).
Hermawati, who was born and raised in Tuaran, Sabah, her husband Azlan Mat Noor and their three children: boys Rayyan Azlan (12) and Emran Azlan (11) and the youngest, a girl, is six-year old Deana Azlan call the city home now.
She opens up about her experience living in Calgary so far, and the anticipation of spending the holy month of Ramadan for the first time there.
Even before moving to Canada, she shares that the family had been spending a lot of time together for the last two years because of the pandemic. She expects it to be the same this time around, albeit in Canada.
“We’ve always made it a point to buka puasa together as a family, even before the pandemic started, because that’s how we were brought up – to break fast together as a family.”
They also wake up in the early morning for sahur and eat together: She needs her coffee and “the kids can’t get through the day without eating rice”.
Sahur, the last hour before dawn, is the last chance for Muslims to eat and drink before the daily fast begins.
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Spending time with family, says Hermawati, seems to be the local culture in Calgary.
“People come home after work and spend the rest of the day with the family by by doing things together like taking walks in the park, for example,” she says.
And because of this, she anticipates that she will be home in time to cook for the family during Ramadan.
“I can do that here because there is a really good work-life balance where people actually spend a lot of time with the family. Like, you’ve got to take the kids out to park every day here ‘cause that’s the culture... so that’s what we do.”
It also helps that the food Malaysians like to eat, and the ingredients use for cooking local dishes, are all easily available in Calgary.
“So what I cook here is exactly what I cooked in KL. Every two days is curry and then there’s mee goreng, nasi goreng, roti jawa or puri (a fried Indian flatbread).
“Where local Canadian food is concerned, they have this dish called poutine (french fries, cheese curd and brown gravy). I don’t know why, but the french fries and potatoes here taste so, so good,” she declares.
Ramadan is the holy month for Muslims who observe fasting from sunrise to sunset every day for a whole month; they also perform the obligatory five daily prayers as well as nightly congregational prayer known as Terawih. Ramadan is also a time for reflection, remembrance of God and Prophet Muhammad, recitation of the holy book, the Quran, and other spiritual practices.
In Malaysia, it is more or less the norm for the whole country to change gears, whether in the workplace or school, during Ramadan. As Muslims abstain from food and drink during the day, they also stay way from restaurants and eating places in the daytime with the exception of the Ramadan food bazaars, of course. Many make it a point to rush to make it home or to other venues in time to break fast with family and friends.
Of course it has been a rather lonely affair these past two years with the restrictions and lockdowns due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
This year, however, with most of the restrictions lifted, Muslims and Malaysians in general would most likely have a similar experience as to that of pre-Covid-19 times.
It’s a different story in Canada, Hermawati relates, since Covid-19 restrictions have already been fully lifted since the beginning of March this year.
“Everybody can return to the office and schools. When we arrived in September (last year), we quarantined for two weeks and after that we were walking around the city. And not a lot of people were wearing masks or washing their hands frequently, unlike in Malaysia.
“And then in March everything went back pretty much to normal so we were allowed to go back to the office and you don’t have to wear masks, even in restaurants unless they ask you to wear it – the operators have a right to ask you to wear a mask,” says Hermawati who turned 40 recently.
Seasons change
Another big difference for the family, who live in a house in St George’s Heights, is the cold climate and experiencing the changing of the seasons.
The days were much shorter during winter but as it is spring time now, the days are getting longer and the weather, “much more bearable”, says Hermawati.
“When we first arrived, the temperature was probably around 12°C to 13°C. I think the worst was during winter when it dropped to minus 30°C to minus 33°C. And now it’s around 17°C, so it’s nice and warm,” she laughs.
“It is a new experience for all of us, the four seasons is something new to all of us.
“Calgary is great but it also snows a lot. They say it’s going to snow up until May. So instead of rain you get snow,” she adds.
Another thing Hermawati didn’t realise about Calgary, until about a month later into moving there, was its elevation: the city is 1,045m above sea-level.
“I was completely surprised. That’s why it was a little tough for me to breathe when we got here.
“So, hiking over here compared to Malaysia was really tough and I thought, ‘I really have to lose weight’, which I still do (laughs) but that wasn’t the reason.
“So if I go back to Malaysia I have super lungs now,” she says with a laugh.
The children have all begun schooling with Rayyan in seventh grade who attends Colonel Macleod School while Emran in fifth grade and Deana who’s attending kindergarten go to Stanley Jones School.
Azlan went on sabbatical when they moved and he’s been a big help, looking after their children, driving them to school and picking them up after, among other things, she shares.
There’s a big Muslim population in Calgary, she says, but it consists mainly of people from the Middle East.
There’s also many mosques to be found. While there is a sizeable Filipino community in the city, there aren’t too many Malaysians and because the number is small, Hermawati thinks that she has been able to meet and keep in touch with most of the Malaysians living there.
A small community
“There’s about about 35 or so of us here. We’ve got this group and they are the ones who have been sharing things about what to do during Ramadan, what to cook and all that stuff.”
She has also been told that fasting there is less demanding because of the cool, dry weather “which keeps us from sweating and we don’t feel as tired”.
It is going to be different for the young boys though, she says, as back in Malaysia they would have the company of their classmates who would also be fasting.
She hopes they would do the same here as there are other Muslim children in the school they attend.
“What is different though is that in Malaysia, physical activities in school are cut back during Ramadan while over here, everything will proceed as normal,” she says.
Also, there is no holiday for Hari Raya Aidilfitri, the day of celebration after spending a month of fasting.
That is however not a deterrent for Hermawati and family as they have decided to spend Hari Raya in Malaysia this year with her father who lives in Tuaran.
“We’re coming back for Hari Raya! There are a lot of people planning to come over here to visit us until the year end so I thought that we’d better go back home before everybody else comes here.
“The kids will be missing school for two weeks, which is long, but I’ll have to talk to their teachers about it,” she says.
It is easy to see how close-knit a family this is, facing new challenges and experiences together in a foreign land.
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