Ramadan Special: Different Lives - From the Land on the Water to the Land Down Under

“It was a bit of a struggle to settle down as a small family in a completely different country.”

It was in 2006 when Shiuna had gone to do her Masters in Australia, with the decision to come back to Maldives afterwards. She ended up liking it so much that she held a long discussion with her family and decided that they wanted to move there.

Life in Male’ was pretty much the standard affair before Ramadan, going to work. Her husband, Solih, would take their only daughter Hashma to school before he went off to his place of employment. After finishing work, they would spend time with one another. And during Ramadan, working from 9:00am to 2:00pm and then heading home to cook was the routine.

After finishing her Masters, she and her husband made the initial move to Melbourne, Australia in 2009 with their daughter, who got married and settled down with her husband after getting her Masters, with their son being born there as well.

They have now become citizens in the land down under, but it was no easy task. Shiuna said that while the visa and residency processes at the time were easy to acquire in order to settle down, it has become much harder to do so these days.

She said that many sacrifices had to be made to settle down there, with struggles in finding permanent employment being a large part of it.

Family time during Ramadan was spent on audio and video calls with Shiuna’s siblings and various other family members, with the six-hour time difference seeing one side of the family starting the day and the other coming close to ending theirs.

Shiuna’s descriptions of their family about their day-to-day routine during Ramadan colors them as creatures of habit. Suhoor is spent together eating oats, bread or cereal, with the early morning rush beginning at 7:00am as everyone takes off to work at varying times.

After getting back home, Hashma takes care of the cooking, with Shiuna taking care of other household chores. Weekends are spent together, where her grandchild’s activities, laundry, grocery shopping and cleaning are the focus in readying themselves for the coming week.

Working hours do not change during Ramadan in Australia, with 9-to-5 being the norm. However, since she had been working at her place of employment for a while now, Shiuna is able to make use of the flexibility that is offered to work from 8:00am to 4:00pm, along with working from home two to three days a week with the advent of working-from-home.

Time spent with her grandchild is also a part of their daily routine after he comes back from daycare.

Ramadan in Australia is quite different compared to Maldives, where fasting takes place for 15 hours daily, starting from around 5:15am and breaking fast at around 8:15pm.

Their table spread for breaking their fast does not have a multitude of dishes as is the case in Maldives, with one main dish, perhaps a salad and finger foods gracing their table once in a while. Quite the health-conscious family, they tend to limit what they eat to stay in good health as the years roll by.

Shiuna and her family have accomplished their dream of moving their family to Australia. Years of hard work, struggle and consistency have allowed them to carve out a better life for themselves and for the little boy that runs around their house.

What lies ahead is a life of security, safety and the satisfaction of achieving such a difficult goal, with the family flourishing since they settled down and even more blessings to come in the future.