Eid and the scarecrow festival
I said I'd report back about the Eid celebration, so here I am!
I didn't take many photos, I have to admit. While I was tempted to take more, I didn't want to make anyone uncomfortable by turning their celebration into a tourist attraction.
The Eid celebration was held at a local Muslim centre. It is maintained by Arabic muslims, but they were not using it that day (it was on the small side for a rec centre- I suppose they went someplace larger?) so ten Malaysian families rented it for the day. Our friend J, the one who invited us, said it was for the princely sum of 5 pounds an hour. Good deal.
Most of the women and many of the men were in traditional dress. I would have loved to have taken a photo of a few of the men, but I wasn't really comfortable with doing that. They were made of brightly coloured silk, with a sash/apron hanging in the front.
As it's a celebration breaking their 40-day Ramadan fast, food features heavily. There were two buffet areas. I took a quick photo of one:
I wish I could explain it all but I really can't. Those of you who have had Indonesian food will recognize quite a bit of it, as they share many of the same dishes. The bowl at the bottom of the photo is one our hostess put together for me- each ingredient is on the table individually, and you're meant to know which ones go with which item. Of course, most people there did.
She proceeded to do this for us with almost every other food option on the table!
On the right, there is glutinous rice, and rice cubes, with a lamb dish and a beef dish. To the left, there are stringy pancake-type things, served with curried something. chicken? The beef dish was amazing. I'm not a fan of lamb, but it looked to be in the same style of the beef: luxuriously spiced, probably marinated and/or cooked for days before the event.
Here is a very typical dish from the region:
Noodles, hot chilis, vegetables, and a very fishy sauce. It was nice, but fishier than I prefer. This was probably the only thing I wasn't really excited about eating.
Here's cookieman with the little dude:
And here's a closeup of the dude:
(he's sitting up on his own now!)
After the biggest lunch evar, we headed to our friends' village for the scarecrow festival. Essentially, people build creative scarecrows and show them off in their front gardens. There were many good ones, but I'll keep it to a few.
Here's the bartender scarecrow, serving drinks at the Crowbar (Brits and fans of British drinks will recognize some cute spoofs on beer/cider names there):
Here's a scarecrow band in the local cemetery:
And here's a dancing pair, called Strictly Come Scarecrow:
It was a good excuse for a walk around, but we were all burned out rather early in the day. We went back to our friends' place, had some muffins and a cup of tea, and headed home in time for dinner for the dude.
I'll do a dude post later, perhaps tomorrow.
I didn't take many photos, I have to admit. While I was tempted to take more, I didn't want to make anyone uncomfortable by turning their celebration into a tourist attraction.
The Eid celebration was held at a local Muslim centre. It is maintained by Arabic muslims, but they were not using it that day (it was on the small side for a rec centre- I suppose they went someplace larger?) so ten Malaysian families rented it for the day. Our friend J, the one who invited us, said it was for the princely sum of 5 pounds an hour. Good deal.
Most of the women and many of the men were in traditional dress. I would have loved to have taken a photo of a few of the men, but I wasn't really comfortable with doing that. They were made of brightly coloured silk, with a sash/apron hanging in the front.
As it's a celebration breaking their 40-day Ramadan fast, food features heavily. There were two buffet areas. I took a quick photo of one:
I wish I could explain it all but I really can't. Those of you who have had Indonesian food will recognize quite a bit of it, as they share many of the same dishes. The bowl at the bottom of the photo is one our hostess put together for me- each ingredient is on the table individually, and you're meant to know which ones go with which item. Of course, most people there did.
She proceeded to do this for us with almost every other food option on the table!
On the right, there is glutinous rice, and rice cubes, with a lamb dish and a beef dish. To the left, there are stringy pancake-type things, served with curried something. chicken? The beef dish was amazing. I'm not a fan of lamb, but it looked to be in the same style of the beef: luxuriously spiced, probably marinated and/or cooked for days before the event.
Here is a very typical dish from the region:
Noodles, hot chilis, vegetables, and a very fishy sauce. It was nice, but fishier than I prefer. This was probably the only thing I wasn't really excited about eating.
Here's cookieman with the little dude:
And here's a closeup of the dude:
(he's sitting up on his own now!)
After the biggest lunch evar, we headed to our friends' village for the scarecrow festival. Essentially, people build creative scarecrows and show them off in their front gardens. There were many good ones, but I'll keep it to a few.
Here's the bartender scarecrow, serving drinks at the Crowbar (Brits and fans of British drinks will recognize some cute spoofs on beer/cider names there):
Here's a scarecrow band in the local cemetery:
And here's a dancing pair, called Strictly Come Scarecrow:
It was a good excuse for a walk around, but we were all burned out rather early in the day. We went back to our friends' place, had some muffins and a cup of tea, and headed home in time for dinner for the dude.
I'll do a dude post later, perhaps tomorrow.