RAYA REPORT

since this will possibly be my only raya in this country (or at least i hope it would be), i will try to explicitly document what happened to me on 1 syawal 1427.

me and my malaysian colleagues (which consist of my housemate and my manager) have decided to go to this particular mosque that gives sermons in english. we thought that since we'd be wearing our baju melayu to the mosque, i'd be better if we go to a mosque where the 'international community' would be going to so that we won't stand out so much. as prayers would start at 6.45 am, my manager agreed to pick us up at 6.15. and he volunteered to give us wake up call at 5.30.

the night before raya, i went out with my boss' secretary (for the countless times). we went to baskin robbins (which is across the road from my house - how cool is that! :P). she had ice-cream, i had mineral water. i was sick actually (i still am. i think it's intially homesickness that is now translated into ...err bodily sickness. heheh). we had a very long talk and i ended up reaching home at 1.30 am. well at least i was keeping up with my raya routine - i always sleep late the day before raya. but at 5.30 sharp i was up, ready to face the dreadful day :P. by 5.40, there ws still no call from my manager. i got worried. i was afraid that he had overslept. so i called him. no answer. i got stressed (i always do when things don't go according to plan). so i woke my housemate up next. i believe my exact words to him was "eh, dah pukul 5.40 ni. aku try call (my manager's name) tapi dia tak angkat la. dia terlajak kot". and his reply: "tapi (my manager's name) kata dia nak bagi wake-up call pukul 5.30". what kind of response is that? but i decided to let it go and stop the conversation there. it is hard enough to get something remotely smart coming from him when he is wide awake, what more when he is groggy and just woke up from sleep.

after waking up the roomate, i went down to prepare something for me to eat. you know how it is sunat to eat something before u go for semayang raya? back home, i would've feasted on the raya food before going to the masjid. the rendang dinding, the nasi impit, the kuah kacang, the satay... but that morning, i was having spaghetti bolognaise (leftover from the previous night) and milo ais. what a stark difference. luckily, malaysia was celebrating raya a day later so i know that my family was still fasting at that time.

finished eating at about 6.00. went upstairs and saw that the housemate's room was still dark. so i woke him up once again. this time with a bit more attitude.

"weh, ko tak nak gi semayang raya ke?"
"tapi (my manager) cakap dia akan bagi kita wake up call kan?"
"habis tu kalau (my manager) terlajak sampai kul 9, ko pun nak terlajak sekali la?"
"haaa.. ye la ye la." (disgruntled tone)

this is a classic example of my housemate. number 1, he is incapable of thinking outside the box. of the "what if"s. and number 2, when people are trying to help him (like for example, me trying to help him NOT miss semayang raya in case if our manager could not make it on time), he thinks that i am burdening him. like i'm giving him an order that is against his will. like he's doing ME a favour by waking up. god, he can sleep until the end of century for all i care (just keep paying his portion of the rent and i'll be fine).

although my housemate managed to piss me off within the first hour of my eid, i still decided to initiate the mintak maaf ritual with him. mostly because i really don't expect him to initiate it. and being 4 yours younger (although much more matured) than him, i guess it was only fair. plus, it can''t be argued that aku memang banyak dosa dgn dia. melimpah2 dosanya...hahahah. so we did our salam2 and mintak maaf ritual that morning.

anyway, by 6.10, my manager called. he DID oversleep. but he managed to make it to our apartment at 6.30. at that time, we knew that it was too late to go to the english-sermon mosque so we decided to go to the mosque across the road from our apartment. and true enough, we got (almost) everyone staring (one thing about the people here is that they don't seem to feel that staring is rude. or they don't know if ANYTHING is considered rude because they are naturally rude. the first few months that i was here, i got a lot of full body eye scan from people in the lift. they'de be looking at me from top to bottom without blinking. maybe they find it hard to find a fili*ino looking guy in a shirt and tie and carrying a laptop bag in my office building).

after we found our spot (outside the mosque - the mosque was full), i started looking around. i discovered that people don't really dress up for hari raya. it was just like a typical friday prayers. some people were in the white robes, but some others were wearing jeans and t-shirts. it's hard to find people not in their baju melayu in the mosques back in malaysia. no matter how non-conformist a person is, chances are he'd be in his baju melayu on hari raya.

and then there was the takbir. alamak. takbir sini tak feel la. very robotic. i much prefer the takbir back home. but maybe it was a good thing that it was like that. if it was as mendayu2 as the takbir back home.. i may have gotten all emotional there at the mosque compound. it would NOT have been a pretty sight. and then, surprisingly, a lot of people left after performing the prayers and did not wait for the khutbah. and these are the arab-speaking people i'm talking about. many of us who waited for the khutbah are non-ar*bs like me who (especially in my case), has the comprehension of the language of a 2 year-old. not fair.

the other unfair thing is how we (back home) do not have the hug-hug-kiss-kiss ritual like the ar*bs... hehehe. they were a lot of this going on at the mosque after the prayers. ok i won't provide the details of this since this is a raya entry and therefore would be a little bit inappropriate.. but let's just say when i saw at the mosque looked like a scene from musicth*que (when a plu meets and greets another fellow plu).

ok ok ..moving on..

after prayers, we drove off to my manager's house as per plan (my house for the day). my manager told me that the reason why he overslept was because he slept late the night before because he and his family got back home late from the shopping mall to buy some chicken. the problem was, he went to a carrefour that was 45 minutes-drive away from where we live to get the chickens. all because the carrefour near our place was jampacked with people and he couldn't even get into the parking area. i got aggravated when i heard this. but since it's the morning of raya (and i was to spend the whole day with him and his family) i didn't say much. but i just didn't get it. just for your information, carrefours are not the only places in dubai where you can get chicken. you can get chicken ANYWHERE. it's not like he was buying 10 kilos of chicken that requires him to go to the hypermarket to get it. why couldn't he go to someplace nearer? kedai runcit bawah rumah aku pun ada jual ayam. isk...stress stress.

thank god the food (especially the chicken) was good. well i was eating with a blocked nose so i couldn't really tell. good enough i guess. after eating, i dozed off in front off the tv for a while, while watching kung fu hustle (in english!). i didn't know that the movie was so merepek. after that, my boss came with his family. followed by my boss's secretary. i have to say that it still felt festive eveen though we were not in msia. (it was funny because before the actual day, i would imagine myself sitting in a corner - sulking on the first day of raya. i imagined that my boss would ask me why was i so sulky and i would reply to him "because you did not approve my leave la!!" luckily that didn't happen. i wasn't sulking at all.

in the afternoon, upon hearing that the msian embassy in abu dh*bi was having an open house thingy in the evening, we decided to drive up to abu dh*bi. abu dh*bi is about 2 hours' drive away from dub*i. i had not been to abu dh*bi, so i was quite excited. but even with all the excitement, i managed to sleep the most part of the journey (must have been my cough medicine). when i reached the embassy, i saw a piece of kl/msia. so many malaysians! most of them in baju melayu / baju kurung. yang can do pun ada ...hehheheh. and the food was not bad too (except for the satay which was thai-styled. wayyy too chunky and not sweet enough).
i got to know a few people at the embassy. i actually striked up a conversation with this (can do) guy at the buffet line. he's probably 22-23. a bit rempit-ish.. hehehe. but nice. so we talked and he introduced his friends to me. i introduced my colleagues in return. one of his friends is spending raya here because his boss didn't approve his leave either (same story like mine). but the difference is his pregnant wife and 2-year old daughter is back home in kl. i'm still single (promo ke ni? heheheh). i then realise that i shouldn't feel so bad about myself because apparently there are people who are in a worse situation than i am.

anyway, after taking some photos, we left abu dh*bi at around 8 pm. reached home at about 10. i voice-chatted with some of my friends in the uk and went to sleep right after that. and that's how my first day of raya turned out to be. overall verdict: not so bad. better than expected actually.i guess it was an experience that i can share with other people in the future. when you say that you spent the first day of raya at an embassy open house .. it does sound cool, doesn't it. very the expat... hahaha. but i don't plan to do it again next year. next year, i'm going to be BACK for raya - no matter what!!

oh, and i plan to go to egypt during the raya haji break. saper nak ikut? :P