Eid al-Fitr

Joseph Easley
Apr 23
2 min read

The month of Ramadan ends with a celebration. The holiday is officialy called Eid al-Fitr, but in Morocco they call it the Eid al Sghir, which roughly translates as "small holiday". This holiday is something all Moroccan's look forward to celebrating. It marks the end of a month of fasting from sunup to sundown. Everyone gets new clothes and they make special cookies and treats. It is a time to be together as family and eat a meal during the middle of the day. In years past when we lived near Al Hoceima, this holiday was somewhat quiet for us. Our friends spent the day with their own families and enjoyed the return to normal eating hours and routines.

Here in Isgoufa, before Ramadan was even half over we started to hear about the local traditions and started to get an idea that this year would be different. Sometime around the middle of Ramadan two of our girls' good neighborhood friends came and asked if we would please go and purchase matching outfits for our girls. They wanted to be able to match one another on the Eid. A little while later I had a foreign friend ask me if I had purchased my cookies for the Eid yet. I didn't know what she was talking about, but she quickly explained they were important for the morning of the Eid.

The morning of the Eid drew near. We had purchased cookies and were waiting excitedly for something, we weren't really sure what. Up on our roof we could see the neighborhood stirring and hear lots of kids laughing and running around. This was a big change from Ramadan when no one was awake until well after 9 or 10. At 8 the neighborhood girls knocked at our door dressed in their new clothes and looking beautiful, they took our girls around the neighborhood where they went door to door saying good morning and eating cookies. They had the best time together.

Shortly after that my neighborhood friend came and took me door to door to greet women and say "Happy Eid". Everyone was laughing and having the best time. They welcomed everyone into their home and had them eat a cookie, drink a cup of tea and sit for a moment. Then we were off to the next place - a trail of women laughing and asking questions of one another. It was so much fun! And what an opportunity to get to know our neighbors better and meet new ones. We loved it.

Joey and the boys were also able to go around and visit - sitting with men and enjoying the festive spirit. We passed each another going from house to house, he with the men and me with the women. Honestly it was one of my favorite days in the last year.

The Eid does have a religious element to the day. Early in the morning all of the neighborhood men gathered together on top of a flat roof near our house and prayed together according to the Islamic tradition. It was interesting to see.