By Teo Shanan
Eid al-Adha, more commonly referred to as Hari Raya Haji in Malaysia, is an auspicious religious occasion honouring the Prophet Abraham’s devotion to God. The start of this holy feast of sacrifice is marked by the end of the hajj pilgrimage. Eid al-Adha began in the evening of Thursday, 25 October 2012, and ended in the evening of Friday, 26 October 2012. Many muslim NUMed students celebrated this festival at home, and here we draw up on the experiences of both those who did and others who were stuck in their second home – the ISV.
One muslim student who observed the occasion related the experience of his weekend as follows:
“I went home on Thursday afternoon as Friday was a public holiday. When I reached home, I was really happy and excited. This was the first time I’d been home since university started. The next morning, we went to perform prayers in the neighbourhood mosque, and we sacrificed a cow. After that, we had a family feast, as we had invited our relatives and neighbours over to enjoy delicious home-cooked traditional Malay fare prepared by my mother and my grandmother. “
However, there were also others who were not so lucky. An international student tells of his experience staying in for the long weekend – “My weekend was quite unexciting...To be honest, I didn’t really expect much, as most of my friends were going back home for the long break, but being an international student, I did not know life was going to get more difficult – on Hari Raya Haji day, THERE WAS NO FOOD!!!! I slept in, and by the time I woke up at 2pm, I was hungry and dragged myself down to the ISV cafeteria, to find it closed. Needless to say, my next three or four meals were instant noodles from the sundry shop and I waited to carpool with my friends who had cars. I don’t ever want to repeat this experience again.”
A third student approached by our TNT team describes her relaxing weekend at home in the city: I spent the Hari Raya Haji weekend at home. We don’t celebrate this occasion, so I went shopping and spent quite a lot at the newly-opened H&M store in Kuala Lumpur. I did initially plan to go to Kamal Bookstore to stock up on some books for the coming exams but when I got home I realized I’d left my shopping list in my ISV room...and it was just as well, as Kamal was closed for Hari Raya Haji!
All in all, the dawn of the long break was a very welcome seeing as the first month in NUMed was a time of drastic and demanding change for most, if not all, students. However, the experiences drawn up over this weekend leave something to take away, and that is of course, that we can only attempt to adapt to new environments, a seemingly insane amount of work, as well as the pressure of being far away from home. It would surely do us some grace to deal with what lies ahead in the following weeks, months and years of medical school.
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