Eid ul-Fitr Open House 2013
Open Houses for Eid |  Open houses List |
Dear friends,
The way Canberrans celebrate Eid is unique. Even our interstate friends have no idea how much we enjoy on the occasion. Some of our relatives who came to visit us from Bangladesh are so excited that they want to come again just to celebrate Eid with us. What makes us different? Well, during Eid celebration – Eid day and the following weekend – everyone visits everyone!! The whole city springs to life. Three hundred or so of us move from suburb to suburb, house to house, often in big groups, ‘kafela’ you may say, exchanging greetings. Our neighbours and friends living in different parts of Canberra replaces our close relatives living in Bangladesh – whom we miss in our celebration. It brings the whole community together, binds us even closer. To our children it is an experience of the life we left behind – to be part of and proud of carrying to our future generations.
People often misunderstand the ‘open house’ announcements that many of us post during Eid celebration. It may reflect an official connotation but the idea behind it is simply to help people not to miss each other. So that people knows who will be available when to better manage the limited time available to visit everyone. Traditionally, people send individual emails announcing date and time they will be available at home to greet others. This is fine, but keeping track of these loose emails and announcements is a bit difficult.
Like every year, this year also PriyoAustralia.com.au is dedicating a free web-space for people to post their Eid ‘open-house’ messages. This is solely to place all ‘open house’ information in one location to help us all to plan our visits.
If you are interested in posting a ‘open house’ message please send email to openhouses@priyoaustralia.com.au with the following information:
1. Your name:
2. Street address:
3. Suburb:
4. Date of open house:
5. Time of open house (from and to):
6. A short message:
Wishing you a very happy Eid.
Regards,
PriyoAustralia.com.au Team
This above article originally written and contributed by Ehsan Ullah, Canberra, Australia
