Fun & Festivities

~ Monday 28th July

Edit: Yes, I understand that you're reading this post about a month later, but it's the thought that counts.

I hope you all had a lovely one after a month of intense fasting. Granted, I had fasts that were approximately 8 hours shorter than yours, but I felt them more here than I have ever felt them in England. I promise you that's no lie. Like, I felt actual hunger to the point where I just wanted food and the time to breaking the fast couldn't come quick enough. I've never felt that back home before (only in the last hour or so but I mean, that's natural, it happens to even the best of us). I don't know what it was, initially I thought it was because I was working, but my mum and my cousin Shazmeen who's here from Paris both said the same thing. Strange.

Imagine my relief when I found out we were celebrating Eid today. I actually first found out that England were celebrating; we hadn't received any news of the sighting of the moon yet because in Malawi we follow the sighting of the moon either here, or in South Africa regardless of whether Saudi report a sighting or not since the clear skies here allow for it. Usually, both Ramadan and Eid are celebrated a day later than England but this year Ramadan fell at the same time. Anyway, I was getting messages from family and friends wishing me a happy Eid and I was thinking "hold up! I don't think we're even celebrating!". I was feeling pretty left out to be honest, the thought of having to fast while majority of the world would be feasting on majestic lunches and scrumptious sweet treats was pretty depressing to say the least. I was literally jumping up and down in happiness a few minutes later when my cousin told us that the moon had been sighted in South Africa.

It's the first time in a very long time that Malawi have celebrated Ramadan and Eid with everyone else. Fate? I think so.

I was the only happy one though. The family were unprepared to celebrate (we Indians are last minute with everything). Last night was a mad one. At 11pm, my cousin Nasreen rushed off to make fresh cream icing and finish the cake she had still had left to decorate, my aunty attended to her half-prepared lunch for today, my dad was teaching my little cousin Hamza algebra (yes, you read that correctly), and I began the henna for us four girls. I slept at 2am (shock to my system after a series of 10pm curfews). So much for beauty sleep.

I then awoke at 4am and I now feel like a zombie writing this at 12am because it's been non-stop. We had guests in the morning and then, because my cousin still hadn't finished that damn cake, we went out looking for strawberries (in our flashy desi clothes - we were getting some seriously funny looks from the locals). We then did a barbecue for lunch which was amazing, no lie. If you ever want to taste a real barbecue, go to Africa.

After that, us kiddies (Shaz, a 23 year old, me and Nasreen being 20, my cousin Nusrat and brother Shaahid being 16, and Hamza being 10) headed off to an Eid fair because we're just that cool. If your imaginations have sprinted ahead to Pleasure Beach or something to that scale, please stop now. It was merely a poor excuse of a fun fair, a stretch of land with scattered stalls, a paddling pool, a cordoned off area that measured about 3m x 3m where paint-balling was taking place, go-karting (a race track that would take a minute tops to drive around) and a single ride called The Big Wheel.

The paddling pool had no water, the paint-balling would have resulted in us having a 3-a-side game which is pathetic and the go-karts only had two little cars, both of which had no fuel. Go figure. So we simply bought lots of junk food, laughed at the African life that should have stopped surprising us by now, and sat on The Big Wheel twice because admittedly, it was awesome. For an African "ride" anyway. It was two wooden planks serving as a swing within a cloth ferris wheel so we swung back and forth, but the wheel itself was moving round so it was an optical illusion of us moving in a counter-clockwise direction whilst the wheel spun in a clockwise direction. Impressive.

We got home in the evening and then we just bought pizzas from Pizza Inn and chilled as a family. It's been a long day. My feet are aching and my eyes are drifting and so I must love you and leave you (with a picture or two that captured our fun day).