I know it’s a little bit late. But I guess it’s better late than never.
On Thursday night, after iftar on The University of Reading’s Muslim Centre, I was told that there was a possibility to celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr on Friday. Because not all of us agreed about what day we should celebrate the Eid, I decided to have my sahur the next morning and come to the centre (look, I’m using British spelling here!) to see if there’s an Eid prayer there. And guess what, there was an Eid prayer.
So I break my fast with some dates that I intentionally bring with me, and join the prayer. The centre is not big, just like a small-house, so that probably only 80 people or so can fit inside. A lot of people come to the mosque, mostly Arabs and South Asian people. I think (sorry, I didn’t really remember it) the khutbah/speech was delivered in Arabic rather than English. After the prayer and the khutbah were delivered, we just greeted each other and shook hands and hugs. I met some people I’ve met before at the iftars and of course greeted them. But after that, I hurried myself to my class because I got a presentation to be done. After all, it was still Friday, and it’s not exactly a holiday here.
The presentation I must do is a free-topic one, unmarked, and had three minutes(!) non-restrictive time limit. By non-restrictive I mean that the time limit itself is not exactly a maximum limit, but it’s imposed to remind people that we have about forty people in the class and everyone should have the same chance. Anyone will not be stopped if he/she took more than three minutes. For my presentation, I chose to answer the two questions I think I have been asked many times since I came to Reading. The questions were:
- about earthquake. I chose to highlight a report about how well Indonesia is doing in rebuilding Aceh after the 2004 tsunami
- about Indonesian language, Bahasa Indonesia. I showed and demonstrated some common phrases like: “Selamat datang,” “Apa Kabar?” and “Sampai jumpa.”
The presentation pictures are courtesy of Dina Petri (Russia), go and see the whole album on her Facebook. Update: sandy eggi, in his comment below, noticed that I was wearing “baju koko”, a special embroidered shirt commonly worn by muslim in Indonesia, on holidays like Eid (or even everyday if they wish).
The story continued on the next day (hope it will be the next post). Eid Mubarak!
