The big day has come and gone. For Christians, it kind of feels like the end of Christmas Day, when you realize all the anticipation for a holiday is gone, the festivities have concluded, and you have to wait an entire year for it to happen again. I wasn’t really expecting much to happen for my first Idul Fitri, since there weren’t any expectations to begin with. The major things I knew were that it’s the biggest holiday of the year for Muslims, and people take the day to ask loved-ones for forgiveness. Not much else to build on that, though.
Idul Fitri officially begins when the new moon rises (and is different because of Indonesia’s time difference and several other factors) but the party started the night before, when Ramadan ended. When Maghrib, or the evening prayer, began, and the month of fasting was over, my desa lit up like the fourth o’ July y’all (not sure why I thought of that in a Southern accent). Fireworks went off (both homemade and factory-grade) and my ibu, uncle, aunts, approximately 18 children and I piled into my bapak’s pick up truck and drove through the town. If you’re reading this Peace Corps staff, I was sat in the front of the truck, don’t worry. The defining feature of this drive was the two-foot tall megaphone that was attached to the top of the truck, though. The kids took turns chanting and singing while banging on empty plastic water jugs. You know, these ones. We went deep into the rural part of my town, caught some fireworks shows, and were on our way. I also saw a procession of kids carrying tiki-torch-esque things, and was explained that was a traditional way of celebrating the end of Ramadan back before there was electricity.
Then, just when I thought the chanting over the loudspeakers was done for the night, the singing continued in the mushola next door. Post-Idul Fitri inquiring found that the name of this is Eid Takbeer/Takbir. The activities to celebrate the end of Ramadan are called Takbiran. This continued for the entire night. I wasn’t prepared for that, but also should’ve been prepared for that. I did not get much sleep. When I heard the call to prayer that 4am the next morning though, I was one happy Peace Corp Volunteer.
Overall, Idul Fitri is about joy, thanksgiving, and unity. I think it’s also about the free food (my uncle’s words, not mine). The actual day of Idul Fitri was so exciting I could cry. I don’t know why, like I said, I’ve literally never celebrated it, but I can equate a lot of the experience to Christmas morning back home. I was up and ready to go (read: awake and tired AF) at 4:15, took my mandi, and got ready for the walk to the Masjid with my ibu. Everyone is dressed in traditional Muslim clothes; the men are in surangs, and women are in more traditional dresses. It was still early in the morning, and the sun wasn’t high yet so the temperature was nice for the praying that happened outside. I sat there while the praying was had, next to my ibu and host sister. The cutest part was when, as everyone was knelt in prayer, my 10-month old host nephew crawled away from us and ended up hanging out with another family for most of it. No one was even concerned either, the entire community is so close, everyone knows each other, so it was more cute than it was annoying to people. Praying done, then it was time to ask people for forgiveness.
We walked home from the Masjid, and before any fun could be had, children usually kneel before their elders and ask for forgiveness. This is usually when they salim their parents. It was very emotional for my family, which I wasn’t expecting at all either. Family first. Muslims visit their family and friends and ask for forgiveness for anything wrong they may have done in the previous year, using the phrase “Mohon Maaf Lahir Batin”, which more or less means “forgive me from the bottom of my hear for all my wrongdoings." You also salim, where you take an elder's hand up to your cheek or mouth, or give them handshake. I feel like I can devote an entire blog post to how to shake hands in Indonesia. Following that, you then move on to neighbors’ and relatives’ houses to repeat the greeting and request for forgiveness. Sometimes you only pop in for the handshake, other times you'll sit for a few minutes and eat their food, because it's considered very rude to decline. There’s also free snacks! We did this around the desa for a few hours. It was kind of like trick-or-treating, if I could compare it to something? At a certain point, it had gotten so busy with people going in and out of houses, and the streets were so crowded that I lost my family at one point (lol). As it’s customary to take your shoes off before entering houses here, I lost my flip flops a few times. Smoking is also so common here, before men enter a house, they’ll put their cigarettes out, or just set them down while they go in to a house for a few seconds. I was not aware of this, and stepped my bare foot right onto a lit cigarette. Good times! Kids also get money at each house they visit, which would’ve made the holiday much more enjoyable if I applied for Peace Corps when I was 10. Some other highlights were seeing the cutest kitten I’ve ever seen in my life, meeting more neighbors, eating really good traditional Javanese sweets that I forget the names of, and rocking my all-white dress that my ibu bought me.
After the neighborhood stroll, we went back to my house where my family greeted more guests and I chatted with folks. By that point, I was feeling the lack of sleep, big time. I fell asleep sitting up at one point. Ibu told me I could take a rest, and I passed out seconds after lying down…
I woke up to an empty house, which felt like a freaky dream because of how full the place was before I fell asleep, but yes, the house was empty. The next few hours were spent with my immediate family hanging out and chatting. Explaining to my host brother the concept of a snow day was funny and difficult, so if anyone has tips, please comment below.
Then I showered and got changed for round two. Around 5pm, myself, my host brother, host sister, her husband and baby, and my aunt, uncle and their kids drove to the city of Nganjuk to visit my ibu and uncle’s family. First we stopped at my former principal’s house, though (my uncle also works at my school). I thought this was strange, but then I realized why. She had really good snacks. But really, her and her husband are very generous and kind, and it was nice to see them. Did I mention the snacks though? I had pistachios for the first time in eight months, and I don’t know why that would make me so excited, but it did. Then it was onto our family’s neighborhood.
I have over 60 cousins on my ibu’s side. Yes, 60. 6-0. My ibu is one of fourteen kids. Because her family lives over an hour from us, we don’t see them often. But they (the ones I met with and talked to) are very cool. It was time to walk around the neighborhood even more, and shake more people’s hands. The experience of doing this in a neighborhood that you have (somewhat) integrated into and where people know you vs. in a neighborhood you’ve been to once in pretty different. In the morning, I was greeted with “Haaaaai Kay” and “Kak Kayla!”, but later that night, people were asking, “Who’s the dutch girl?” I’m also glad to say my level of Javanese is good enough to know when I’m being talked about literally right in front of me, which happened for majority of the time. I was prepared for the rapid fire questions: my age, my religion, if I’m single or not, if I would take a photo. The usual stuff. But people are just curious, and most PCV’s are completely used to this by now. By 9pm I was exhausted, but before we could head home, we stopped at one more aunt’s house.
It was a long, long, long day. Long. If I could sum it up, I would say it was pretty much every Indonesian experience I’ve ever had, but for the entire day from 4am until 10pm. More than anything though, I did a lot of bonding with my host family, which is something that made me really happy. If you got through this long post, you got a taste of the long day I had. But it was a good one. Selamat Idul Fitri, Eid Mubarak, and Happy Eid to all those that celebrated!