Our third consecutive year berhari raya di perantauan, the second one in Qatar. Sad to say, not much excitement. As hari raya comes earlier in the year, more and more people extend their summer holidays back home. Unlike last year which I think was very meriah, this year it was pretty quiet all around. Amongst our close friends, only a bunch of us stayed in Doha while the rest joli sakan kat kampung.
We started the celebration on the eve of Eid with takbir raya organized by Colosseum Compound cawangan Malaysia. About ten families turned up and fortunately the suasana taklah sayu sangat. Teringat kembali takbir raya while we were in Oman. On the morning of Eid, we went for solat raya at Embassy. Ramai muka2 baru tahun ni, and the place was jam packed as usual. The typical Embassy organized function, very ala kadar, again unlike last year whereby the food was plentiful and every raya dish you could think of semua ada. Maybe coz Dato’ not in town this year. But hey, no complaints (or rather, tak larat nak complain dahh…).
After Embassy, we invited our close friends and neighbours to our place. I stayed up till 2.30 am the nite before cooking rendang daging, kuah kacang and soto. No ‘real’ open house lah this year, this preggy mummy can’t afford to cook and entertain no more. So alang2 masak for ourselves, just increase the portion a lil bit and invite friends over terus. Meriah jugak akhirnya.. In the evening, we went for one more open house and called it a day.
The next few days, we went for more raya invites, taklah banyak, tapi ada lah at least one each day. A relaxing week it was for all of us. Makan tidur makan tidur. Now, one day before school and work starts, we just got to know that the Ministry of Education had announced an extended school holiday for another week. Aahh how I wish that applies to work too! Dream on…
