Skip to main content

Eid al-Fitr

We think it might be the end of Ramadan tomorrow. The announcement has been made that Eid al-Fitr, the Festival of Fast Breaking, starts on Sunday 20th September this year dependent on the sighting of the moon (actually based on astronomical calculations; I was quite disappointed when I found out, crushed my visions of groups of learned personages peering at the moon from hilltops every night).

For Muslims, Eid al-Fitr is a time to dispense charity to the needy and get together with family for celebratory meals and to exchange gifts, with special Eid prayers being said at the Mosque early in the morning on the first day of Eid.

For us expats it's slightly less meaningful, but it does mean a couple of days off from work, a week off school for the kids and being able to eat, drink, chew gum and smoke in public during daylight hours again now Ramadan is over.

It's also an opportunity for ex-pats to get to know their Muslim neighbours better. The kids and I took chocolate brownies over to our neighbours last night as an Iftar gift, which Alpha had told me was the done thing (Alpha has cultural presentations at work so tends to be an overbrimming font of knowledge when it comes to local customs). Some of our neighbours were obviously surprised at the sudden appearance of a Westerner brandishing tupperware and smiling manically while trying to utter mangled Arabic phrases: I can't have been that bad though as some of our kinder neighbours reciprocated tonight with some delicious rice and chicken dishes.

If you want to reach out to your neighbours and do a better job than I did in explaining why you are trying to give them food, here are a few handy Arabic phrases for the Eid period:
  • Kul 'am wa enta bi-khair - May every year find you in good health
  • Eid Mubarak - Blessed Eid
  • Eid Saeed - Happy Eid
  • Taqabbala Allahu minna wa minkum - May Allah accept from us, and from you
Eid Saeed, y'all.

Comments

Maria said…
I'm gonna take some goodies to my neighbours too. Nice idea, thanks YLM.
Anonymous said…
Phonetic pronunciations please to help the ignorant. Hey, it's Christmas! Eid Saeed!

Popular posts from this blog

The Grim Reaper

Firstborn is obsessed with death. It started with the odd comment, such as; "Mummy, what happens when you die?" OK, I thought, I was expecting this at some point, what a cute little curious brain she has. So I trotted out all the cosy Heaven stuff and left out all the things that could worry her, such as worms and bones and holes in the ground. This went down pretty well, although somehow Firstborn made the jump from my view of Heaven (filled with love, joy, always warm, never rains, has a huge discount designer shoe outlet and I never have to pay my Visa bill) to her own view of Heaven; a wonderous place where small girls don't have to eat their vegetables before they're allowed pudding, and where Barbie dolls grow on trees. Anyway, I digress. Last week Firstborn started shouting "Kill! Kill!" in a bloodthirsty tone while bashing her hithero-beloved teddy against the wall. This was topped by her purposely flushing her favourite My Little Pony down the loo. ...

It's my party and I'll cry if I want to

A friend recently emailed me to say that her big memory of her stay with us last year is that she had a great birthday, one of the few where she didn't 'act like a spoiled grumpy princess'. She tried to give me all the credit but as I explained to her, it was all down to having a fellow female organising the birthday fun rather than leaving it to her partner. Her email got me thinking about birthdays and how very different men and women are in their attitudes to celebrating special occasions. It also had me thinking about my birthday two years ago when I threw a major tantrum in the Carrefour car-park after being told that we were off to do the weekly shop, kids in tow, which was simply the final straw at the end of a very uninspiring day. In contrast, my birthday last year was rather lovely (a morning on my own in a spa with no mobile coverage, pure selfish bliss). This year - in a few short months, eek! - I'll be hitting the grand old age of 38. This will be my las...