EID
I enjoy Eid which is an Islamic holiday that is celebrated after Ramadan. Ramadan is when we fast for a month and we do not eat or drink during the day time. We fast from food and all bad stuff like saying bad words, being rude, dating, intercourse even; if you are married you can not do intercourse during the day. It has to be at night when you break the fast. We do this to get closer to God and also to feel how it feels not to have food, how some people around the world live. In order to break our fast at the end of the month we have to celebrate Eid. This holiday has been celebrated in my family for a long time. Eid is the most important holiday to my family because this is the only holiday that we are together as a family, and spend time with and receive gifts from each other.
Every year my family wakes up early the day before Eid. We clean the whole house, because it has to be spotless clean and it has to smell good. After the cleaning is over, ladies get in the kitchen and cook. They always make cookies and halowa. Halowa is sweet Somailan candy. Most people love halowa. It is a sweet made from lots of sugar oil and food color is red or a mixture of brown that has no smell. They also make cake. The cake is my favorite one. It doesn’t have too much sugar but it is still sweet. We also make sambosa, triangle bread that has ground beef, onions potatoes, and some spices inside.
After all the cooking and the cleaning is done, we all go as a family to shop and buy new clothes for Eid. The reason why we buy new clothes is that we want to be fresh and feel good and look good when we go to the mosque in the morning, and also we buy new clothes to give away to the poor. The mosque is a place where all the Muslims gather to pray and do good deeds. The women have to wear something that covers their body; they can not wear pants or short dresses. They have to wear long dresses and hijab to cover their hair. Hijab is a veil that Islamic woman use to cover their hair for religion purposes.
Then at night all the neighbors come to our house. Us boys play cards, the men talk about when they used to be teens, and the women talk about their first love. The girls gossip while they put on Henna. Henna is a form of art for women that they put on their hands and legs which is black and red and they put the black one first as a flower and leave some spots left for the red to fill in. They choose the style want.
The next day we wake up early in the morning to get ready. The boys and the girls end up fighting because the girls take to much time in the bathroom, doing their make up. About 9 am we leave the house all ready and go to the Mosque to pray. There are a lot of people at the mosque everyone is happy and laughing and having fun with their families and we all say “Eid Mubarak” to each other. Eid Mubarak means” happy Eid.” We start the prayer and we pray to give thanks to Allah (God) and we ask forgiveness from Allah for all the sins we have done in the past. The prayer is about 40 minutes and when it is over, everyone greets each other and we take pictures, and wish each other a happy life. We believe that is it a sin to be angry or mad or sad on Eid day. You have to be happy no matter what.
After the mosque we go home and eat the food we made the night before, the halowa sambosa, and the cake, and get gifts from the elders. We get news, clothes, money on that day. You can get anything you want, and that is why all the kids are happy. Then we open gifts and we go to the beach to enjoy the nice day out, take pictures, and video tape the little kids running around. Since we have a big family we make a CD of all the pictures we took and the video tapes and give it to everyone that is part of our family. We watch the CD whenever we miss someone from our family. Every year we do the same thing again. It never gets old.
Eid gives us joy and happiness and that is why we celebrate it every year. It brings all the Muslims closer to each other. It brings family and friends together. When all Muslim people get together and celebrate Eid the whole day goes well. Eid is an innocent day and only good things happen. People meet new friends and enjoy the moments of the day. On that day we get a lot of presents from people, and we help out others if they need help. The whole month of Ramadan is celebrated on Eid, because while we fast all of us are equal. God or Allah wants us to understand how poor people feel.
