Remember when your parents would wake you up before dawn and you’d still be half asleep but eager to get up, put on your newest Abaya or Galabeya and spray somebody splash on to your praying mat?
You’d hear the chanting from your room… It felt like the whole world was unified and chanting together… This was what made it feel like Eid and though you’d feel the serenity in your heart, it would be broken by racing your parents to the mosque just in time to lay your prayer mat before the sheikh says “Allaho Akbar”.
Remember the excitement and genuine happiness you’d feel when a total stranger gave you a gift or a pack of sweets?
Remember how it felt to be able to have breakfast again? And having breakfast with the whole family!
Remember making the Kahk with your mum and eating the dough before it was baked?
Remember scrubbing yourself really well because it was Eid and realizing what “7omeyet el 3eed” really meant?
Remember the feeling and excitement of putting on “lebs el 3eed” that’s been hanging in your wardrobe for a month for this special occasion and feeling like a princess?
Remember going to your grandparents’ house and greeting your whole family with hugs and kisses and feeling the intense amount of love?
Remember lining up in front of Gedo’s room waiting to get your “3edeya”?
Remember the feeling and smell of that new money running through your fingers?
Remember taking your cousins and neighbors and spending your entire 3edeya on sawarekh and bomb?
Remember your uncle telling you off for lighting the sarookh under his car?
Remember having fish for lunch because it wasn’t Ramadan anymore?
Remember spending what’s left of your 3edeya on lollita, balloons and leban se7ry and then checking what color it changed into every other second?
Remember traveling to the balad and feeling like you’re rich and famous from all the greetings you get? Not to mention seeing your long, lost family that you’d only spoken to on the phone.
Remember gathering around the TV watching the latest new English movie released on channel 2?
Remember staying up really late watching “El 3eyal Kebret” and “Madraset el Moshaghbeen”?
