DUBAI (AFP) — Underpaid and underfed all year, Asian workers in Dubai, as in the rest of the United Arab Emirates, get a chance to eat their fill -- and for free -- during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
As the call to prayer goes out at dusk from a mosque in an upmarket district to signal the end of the fast, hundreds of mostly south Asian men gather nearby to savour a meal offered by charities or philanthropists.
Seated on the ground in makeshift tents, construction labourers in blue jumpsuits, gardeners, cab drivers and even technicians plunge into platters of chicken and rice after first breaking the daily fast with the traditional dates and milk.
Mineral water or juice, and an orange or an apple, round up the "iftar" served on carpets strewn across the tents.
"It's a full meal and I'm happy for it. Otherwise I would have had to do with a snack after fasting all day," said Mazhar, a 31-year-old native of Bombay after a day of hard work for his maintenance company in temperatures reaching 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).
Shafik, a frail and weary-looking gardener, has also been making it daily to the tent with a group of fellow Pakistanis since Ramadan, the month when Muslims abstain from food and drink from dawn to dusk, began on September 13.
"We eat as much as we like and the meals are varied," Shafik said, although he confided that he longs for his family back home.
Like most expatriate manual workers, Shafik earns too little to be able to bring his family to the bustling Gulf emirate, where tens of thousands of mainly south Asian workers on scores of construction sites make no more than an average 200 dollars a month.
Ramadan, a month of abstinence during which Muslims must also refrain from sex and smoking during daylight hours, is a time of solidarity and giving to the less fortunate during which families gather for "iftar" and huddle for long nights with relatives and friends.
The UAE Red Crescent and charities set up by government officials and wealthy individuals, most often businessmen, fall over each other to donate to the needy.
Local newspapers carry ads about charitable activities weeks before the holy month sets in, mirroring an outpouring of generosity across the oil-rich Gulf monarchies.
The Red Crescent alone has budgeted for "more than one million meals" to be distributed during Ramadan in around 100 locations in the seven emirates making up the UAE, the organisation's information chief Abdurrahman Tenaiji told AFP.
The price tag for the organisation, which is based in the oil-rich emirate of Abu Dhabi, is 11.36 million dirhams (three million dollars).
In Dubai alone, some 10,000 meals are being served every day, said the organisation's local chief Mohammad al-Hajj Zaroni, stressing that the generosity extends not just to Muslims -- "practicing or otherwise" -- but also to non-Muslims.
"Everyone is welcome to have these meals. Our tents are open to all those who turn up, irrespective of their confessional affiliation," he said.
The meals are generally served near mosques, sometimes in mosque courtyards, and many of those who flock to them are Muslim faithful who go to pray after breaking their fast.
The Red Crescent's bounty does not stop at home. The organisation has earmarked 17 million dirhams (4.6 million dollars) for charitable work in 52 countries during Ramadan.
A third of the funds are being spent in the Palestinian territories and Iraq, Tenaiji said.
Ramadan, which begins with the sighting of a new crescent moon, is followed by Eid al-Fitr, or the festival of the end of the fasting period.
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