Today marks the last day of the month long fasting holiday, or Ramadan, that is celebrated in our new country. Today is actually called Eid ul-Fitri and I'm not sure how that is translated since it is arabic, but I am guessing that it means "Eat yourself comatose." Either way, that is exactly what everyone here does. Everyone makes large quantities of sweets, cookies, cakes and fruit punch, which is an appetizer for the traditional meal of steamed rice cakes that are topped with spicy curried vegetables, boiled egg and topped off with a side of stewed beef in spicy coconut broth. Tradition dictates that you drop by each of your friends homes and eat some of their food. What I didn't realize was that you eat the full spread at each house! Thankfully, we only had two homes to visit today, but lets just say I have never been so glad in my life to come home and put on pants with an elastic waist!
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Last year we went to no less than 10 homes... I lost count. And to make it worse, it's like they don't believe the white people when we say we're full and can't really eat much more (even though when their family members say it, they go with it!) Here though, we only eat the sweets at everyone's house and then at the 'important' homes eat the full spread (conveniently the important homes are the ones we ended up at during meal times... but like we were hungry!) Ours holiday starts tomorrow... wish us luck!
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