Two major religion-based events coming up this week in this part of the world:

1. The end of the fasting month of Ramadan, during which Muslims are not to eat or drink from dawn to dusk — 14-plus-hour stretches, this time of year.

2. The start of Eid Al Fitr, one of the biggest holidays of the year.

But it gets even better for UAE public employees:

They don’t have to work at their government jobs for … nine consecutive days.

As noted in this story in The National, government workers will have five days of paid vacation during Eid, which apparently will begin on Tuesday.

So, five days of vacation, Sunday through Thursday (August 28-September 1), which falls in the middle of two weekends (Friday-Saturday, August 26-26 and September 2-3) …

And that’s nine consecutive days off for UAE government workers.

Well, good for them. If the country can afford to have public-sector employees away from work for nine consecutive days, then things must be going pretty well here.

I wonder, however, just how many countries in the world allow their public employees to take off nine straight days.

North America certainly doesn’t; Americans and Canadians are happy to get three-day weekends, and once in a great while (when a public holiday falls on a Thursday or a Tuesday) they might get four straight off. Might.

Not even the cradle-to-grave socialist democracies of Western Europe give government workers nine straight days off. Far as I know.

If anyone knows of any country that takes off nine straight, I’d love to hear about it.

Anyway, working for the government in the UAE … it has some perks, and the time off before and after Eid Al Fitr certainly is one of them.