Eid in New Zealand 2016

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri Maaf Zahir dan Batin and Eid Mubarak. So the week following Eid I was super busy baking cookies, helping my mother cook and cleaning up the house. However, there was no set date or confirmation as to when Eid really is in New Zealand, nonetheless, my mother was so excited that she couldn't help but get all the preparations done. Eight different types of cookies, seven dishes and a spotless house later, everything was set to go for Raya. After iftar, all of the family was lounging around but then my father suddenly started the takbir as a way to inform the family that we will celebrate Eid (we are not allowed to do takbir unless it really will be Eid) as soon as he saw the confirmation from the FIANZ facebook page. When my father started to do the takbir, I had to leave the room. I was crying. I was crying for a number of reasons; I felt like my iman was the lowest that it has been as I wasn't really reading the Quran as often as I used to, I didn't really focus on my religion during the month of Ramadan as I was busy with other things and a part of me feels guilty for not being the best muslimah that I could be this year. And when I came back to where everyone else was, my brothers made fun of me for crying (as always; grrr).

Nonetheless, as I live in Hamilton, New Zealand, we had our morning prayer at the Hamilton Gardens which was named 'International Garden of the Year for 2014'. No offence to mothers and girls out there but it really is best for you to stay at home and look after the child as throughout the prayers, instead of hearing the iman, you hear children crying or shouting; also it was really rude for the majority of the women talking while the imam was talking/saying the khutbah and they should be considerate of the women who wants to listen. But enough of my rant and let's talk about FOOD. If you know me, I love my food; especially Malay food of course. I love food so much that it could make me cry so it's not uncommon for me to be emotional during Eid. LOL.

Sadly this year there were only a handful of people in the Waikato/Auckland Malaysian community; most people have relocated and some went back home to spend Raya at Malaysia. So this year instead of going to ten or more houses around Hamilton, there were only two open houses for Raya. Thank God that the two houses we went to lived two of the best home cooks that I have ever come across. However, the hosts didn't really prepare the more traditional Malay Raya food, nonetheless, the food was still amazing. Let's just say that I had a really good time eating that I've had multiple food comas/babies.