Conversation Partner #2:Eid-ing

On October 6, I had the pleasure of going to the Eid celebration here at TCU. When I saw Maram last, she had told me that this event was coming up and that she’d really like for me to attend. I wasn’t really sure what the celebration was for, but agreed after seeing how excited she was about it. After going to the event, I was really happy that I was able to be a part of the experience. Upon arrival, I was greeted by familiar faces of the fantastic Lit and Civ II class. After sitting down and chatting for a while with them, the presentation started.

One of the students from Saudi Arabia was talking about what Eid means to them and what it signifies in the culture. For those that don’t know, Eid is a celebration of the breaking of fasting. For this event, many times the elders will give younger family members money or other things that may signify graciousness. This part of the presentation was shown with a funny video that included an elder sitting down in front of a line of young kids. When each of the kids walked up to him, excited for their turn in getting money, each of them greeted their elder with another way of getting the money. For example, one kid walked up to his elder with a card scanner in hand for the elder to swipe his card through and give the child his beloved money. This video got the whole room laughing as pretty much everyone was in on the joke.

Another part of Eid is of course, the feast. I was lucky enough to have eaten so much good food that day. For my meal, I had a chicken kabob, naan, hummus, and my personal favorite, the rice. Maram was a social butterfly that day so it took me a while to finally sit down and have lunch with her. She was telling me about all the foods I had to try and of course her beloved coffee that she had made herself. After that, I had asked if all the other food was prepared by her and the rest of the students, to which she replied quickly, “No, we got it from a store.” When I asked about the validity of the food, she replied that she believed it was pretty authentic. She did however, explain that all parts of Saudi Arabia had different food that was unique to them, so there was no way to get food from each part.

Through the Eid celebration, I was able to talk to other Saudi Arabian students including a boy that had lived in Moncrief last year where I worked as a Desk Assistant. He was telling me all about his studies and how although his English is better than most of the students, he still needs the program to help him out. This made me understand the importance of the program and how special the program is...and what good food they give.