http://thedailystar.net/campus/2007/10/02/pfeature.htm
http://thedailystar.net/campus/2007/10/02/feature_eid.htm
Many of us to go to foreign lands, thousands of miles away from our friends and family, to seek higher education. There, in spite of the fact that we are far away from our beloved parents, comes Eid and other celebrations. This is what Eid looks like, in a home away from home…
Special thanks to Faiyaz & Bilash (Canada), Saikat (Malaysia) and Nafid (Netherlands) for sending in their Eid Pictures.
Two Bangladeshi students, who spent their first Eid outside the country, express their feelings
Nafid Haque (Graduate Student, University of Groningen, Netherlands) :
This Eid was very different from all the other Eid’s of my life. This time no one was there to wake me up and push me to get ready for the Eid prayer. The first time in my life I went for the Eid prayer cycling, the first Eid where I did not get to hug my dad and my brother on the Eid day. It is just about two months I have been living in Holland and here I met Mr. Asad who is well settled here for over 15 years now. He has been very kind and helpful to me since I arrived here though I met him after I came here. He invited me to his house on the Eid day and finally I felt somewhat like home while I spent my first Eid with them.
Sonia Sharmin Islam (Graduate Student, North Carolina State University, USA) :
Eid at Raleigh was not that bad. Every year, on Eid, there is a big Jamat and around 5000 people including both men and women gather there. On the Eid day, I went to the Eid prayer and there were Muslims from several countries including Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Indonesia. People were gathered to pray and see each other. There are several Bangladeshi families here. Usually the people cook food at home and they try to see each other by turn. Each family fixes a time slot and other families go there in that alloted time. Students really enjoy Eid here. Most of them are unmarried or live single. So they go to these families at each time slot and move around the whole day .
I went for breakfast and dinner only and we had lots of fun since it was a weekend. If eids are on working days and children have important classes and exams at school, parents like to send their children to school. Otherwise, they just take one day’s break from everything (office or chidren’s school) and try to celebrate the great festival.
