Discovering Raya

A couple of us got invited along a to a Raya open house thing tonight with some malaysian friends. What happened is that Ramadan, the muslim month of fasting has come to an end, so now they spend time celebrating! People go around to lots of other people's houses, eat and catch up and drink tea and take photos of everyone..

So we came to this friend-of-a-friend's place, and ate delicious chicken sate skewers with real sate sauce, and amazing beef rendang and soup and tea and other good things.. Everyone knelt around on the floor to eat and talk. The women wore pretty dresses, some of them headscarves too; and the men pants and shirts with traditional skirts over the top! There was a lot of malay talk but some english chatter as well, thankfully!

Whenever more people came in everyone would ask where they had just been and how many people were there and what food they had, to gauge whether or not it was a good time to go and visit there also! One of our friends had been around to 6 different houses already that day, and so this was number 7!!

It's cool to picture these little circles of homes scattered through the suburbs, people trotting from one to the next, eating and laughing together (and maybe even watching Fast & Furious #5 in the background, as they were at ours).

Had another food win this morning in class. We were doing a group presentation which was a promotion event or activity on a mental health disorder. We did a community walk, to encourage social inclusion, awareness, and general health & wellbeing. We had personal stories, pictures, a mythbusters section, and even tai chi! Then we met back in the classroom for a great morning tea :)

The other groups were cool too. One gave little goody bags with info, a homemade stress-relief ball (mine's called Henry) and sweets. Nice job.

Sew eat

Cool things today included visiting my friend (& family) on her craft day, and starting this little cityscape embroidery:

You may be able to see the faint outline I traced on to guide the embroidering.

Later a bunch of us went to the Ramadan 'break fast' ceremony and meal at uni at sunset. It's once a week during the month of Ramadan, and is put on by some of the uni clubs/societies incl the Islamic society, Malaysian Society & others. It's open to anyone who wants to come and share the meal though - you don't have to be muslim!

You pay your $2 (or $4 if you're not already a member) and go and sit on some mats and eat the traditional three dates - which would mark the end of your daily fast if you were fasting. Then they have prayers (while we non-muslims stand to the side), and then we all join in feasting together!

We had lamb biryani, salad, pasta, and some sweets. The biryani looked sort of like this one:

It's pretty cool how hospitable they are, and interesting to be able to join in on a ceremony from another religion.. I love the place of food in so many religions! The whole making /sharing/eating thing is so earthy and necessary, but is somehow sacred too.