Selamat Idul Fitri!

"Selamat Hari Raya Idul Fitri! Mohon maaf lahir dan batin." This week marks the biggest holiday of the year for the Muslim world. The month of fasting from 4 am - 6 pm is over, and Idul Fitri is a celebration of victory over natural desires, as my neighbour explained. 

To celebrate Idul Fitri, families flock to the home of their parents or grandparents, where they eat together, enjoy each others' company, and mutually visit with friends & neighbours. It's also very common to hear people requesting forgiveness for anything they may have done, inwardly or outwardly, to offend another. Prominently displayed around town are banners featuring politicians proclaiming "Mohon maaf lahir dan batin." 

There is an expectation (at least in my part of the country) that everyone will enter into the holiday celebrations, regardless of religion. My room-mates & I were invited to several friends' homes, where we ate snacks, chatted with these friends and possibly their families, and ate traditional holiday food (most famously, sticky rice cooked in packets woven from palm fronds accompanied by chicken cooked in a savoury coconut milk sauce -- yum!)

In addition to responding to specific dinner invitations, we have also joined in the neighbourhood visiting. Shortly before Idul Fitri, we delivered some fancy cookies (purchased from a friend who makes them) to our closest neighbours and friends as a holiday gift. Idul Fitri is officially a two-day holiday, but unofficially it carries on for several more days afterwards. The past couple days, we have been making the rounds of our neighbourhood, wishing a happy holiday and requesting forgiveness for our offences. 

Each home has chairs and coffee table set up in their "guest room" (not a room for guests to spend the night, but a room for entertaining guests -- like the parlour back in the day), with cookie tins and resealable containers full of snacks crowded onto the table. Visitors are repeatedly urged to eat, and are offered drinks as well. The staple drink here is tea, but for this special occasion, we have not been served tea at any house. Instead, there has been coffee, pop, and various flavours of juice. 

After eating, drinking, and chatting for a while, we say our 'farewell's and 'thank you's, shake everyone's hand again, and head on to the next house.