Project 365

Eid mubarak! Eid saeed! Kullu sanah wa antum bekhair…

It was a great Eid with Indonesian friends and delicious foods! Lontong, gulai kambing, rendang, and so many other foods that I can’t remember LOL. I was too busy eating that I forgot to take some pictures of the food itself! 😛 Well, I didn’t take that many pictures to begin with. There were many photographers with DLSR cameras so all I needed to do was to pose *kidding*. But these are the only pictures that I took.

I noticed two things about these pictures. One was that I looked soooo thin *panic* and second was that I was the only unmarried single woman there! Hahahaha. These women are my close-knit Indonesian Muslim family :). They make me feel "home" and keep me in check every time. Whether I am in Australia or in the Netherlands, I always make sure that I’m close to at least one family. I love spending with families and playing with their kids. I also like the fact that they keep me grounded and always remind me about certain things. Some of them automatically act as my guardian without being asked and I think that’s important — at least for me — to have someone much older than you to rely on, especially when you’re confused on two choices or need an elderly or wise advice :).

Anyway, after spending the Eid with them, I spent the rest of the afternoon with my Dutch friends that I met at the mosque. It was an Eid brunch/lunch a la Dutch :). Breads, cookies, cheese, and different kinds of spreads. It was really nice to see them again! I really enjoyed it! Alhamdulillah.

Today was my family’s turn for an open house! There were plenty of foods! 40+ guests came to our house. It was a busy day for all of us :).

The last guest went back at around 11.30pm. And we had to do cleaning up until around 1am! Phew! What a day!

Alhamdulillah, I arrived in Jeddah at around 4am. The flight from Amman, Jordan, took around 2 hours and it was quite tiring. There were only 2 passengers (including me)! Hahaha. The whole plane was for us. The other passenger was a Saudi girl, who studied in London for many years. She seemed really nice and didn’t dressed up like most Saudis: simple and almost no make-up (whilst Saudis put too much make-up on daily basis). She had been studying in the UK since 4 years ago. Her family must had been so open-minded and modern, I thought.

When I reached the passport control, there weren’t any queues. So I didn’t have to wait for so long; I only had to wait for my luggage. I was so happy that by the time I reached a luggage carousel, it was 4.30am. But unfortunately, I had to wait for 30 minutes for my luggage to arrive. It seemed like our bags were abandoned, as there were only 2 bags in total. I got out of the airport just after the call for Fajr prayer.

I reached home, took a quick shower, and went to the mosque straight away. I saw many Indonesians (as it’s located near our consulate) and Saudis with their super duper thick make-up. Everyone was so shining. So happy. So delighted. And I felt so blessed to be around with my family for this year’s Eid.

In the afternoon, my family and I went to the residence of the consul general. His house is always used for many Indonesian events. During Eid, the house is opened to the public where many foods will be served. It was my first time to go there during Eid so I was pretty excited. There were plenty of delicious Indonesian foods! I was stuffed with foods and regretted that I ate too much, because we were planning to visit other people’s houses too! 😀

   

Well, thankfully my stomach managed to eat more foods. The next three or four days of Eid will be spent with visiting people’s houses, eating, eating, and eating. I will gain more weight for sure. But I don’t care (it’s not like I ever cared about my weight anyway!). I just wanted to enjoy it.

Hope you all have a great Eid celebration!

I have spent the last 6 years straight of Eid ul-Fitr without my family. And I don’t want to spend yet another Eid “alone” anymore! So today, insya Allah I’ll be flying to Saudi Arabia to join my mom, dad, sis, and bro for the Eid celebration!

I’ll arrive in Jeddah early Friday morning and I really hope I could perform Eid prayer over there! Or, worst case scenario I’ll be praying at the airport hahaha. Then hopefully I’ll meet some of my friends and former teachers at the residence of the consul-general of Indonesia. My family and I will also be visiting friends’ houses, so it’s going to be exciting! I can’t wait to eat the foods hahaha.

In the Netherlands, some people will celebrate the Eid on Friday. And some, including the Turkish people celebrate it today :).

So I want to wish you all, Eid Mubarak. I hope we have improved our faith and may Allah SWT accept our fasts and prayers, Ameen. Kullu 3am wa antum be7air! 🙂 Have a great celebration!