Malaysia Day Raya Craze...

For the past two years, we spent Raya in a very calm and subdued manner, so this year we went a little overboard...hehehe.

Since we missed seeing a few of my cousins during the first few days of Raya, we decided to give them a visit on Malaysia Day, 16th of September 2010. Hadi was complaining of a toothache, so we went to the dentist first and the dentist pulled out two of his front/bottom teeth. I thought there was only one jiggly tooth...hehehe.

Anyway, after various phone calls, it seemed that my cousins were also busy and won't be at home that day. We were already on the highway by then, so we changed our plans. Instead of visiting relatives, we decided to visit friends. The first 'victim' was Mazman's family. I called Kak Rehana and luckily they were in...hehehe. So, their house in Taman Melati became our first destination for the day.

They were caught a little off-guard because we came very fast. We told them, we would be arriving in 30 minutes but in fact, by 20 minutes, we were already infront of their house...muahaha. Kesian, Kak Rehana...hehehe. We chatted while Kak Rehana was busy frying the meehoon. The kids were happy because they finally saw Nabil and Fatiha after so many months. The compound and the house was big, so the kids were busy exploring.

We were teasing Mazman about his 'old house'... Remember the story about 'ghosts' in Sudan? It was their former house...hehehe. Anyway, we were trying to discuss about where to go next. When I call Zana, she sounded very tired because her father just had stroke during Raya so we didn't want to intrude and that's when I remembered that Aiza's also staying somewhere in Taman Melati. I called Aiza and she invited us to her house around 2.30pm.

Mazman also agreed to join us, so we went after zohor prayers. I tried calling Kak Maria but it went unanswered. I actually called Najwa to get Kak Maria's phone number actually, but when she heard that we're heading to Kak Maria's house, she invited us to go to her house instead. Hehehe.

We arrived at Aiza/Zali's house around 3pm and there were so many dishes on the table...hehehe, including sate okay?!! The kids were so excited to see the big swimming pool downstairs. Hadi and Amir even ate at the verandah overlooking the pool. Aiza and Zali were actually planning to go to Zali's parents house in Klang but I managed to convince them to follow us to Najwa's house in Kota Damansara. Muahahaha... I also called Syikeen and arranged a visit to her house after Najwa's.

So, there were 3 cars headed towards Najwa's house. It's quite easy to find actually...hehehe. Najwa who had just 'lost' her maid managed to cook rendang for us. There were 4 families in all, with kids amounting to 14 in all. So, just imagine the noise that we were making. Definitely 'meriah', just like the old days in Khartoum.

Then, around 5.45pm, Syikeen and Ezalman picked us up at Najwa's house. We also managed to persuade Syed and Najwa to join us at Syikeen's house...Muahahaha. Ezalman, who just came back from the hospital (leg injury) had to bear his pain and entertain us. But I think that our presence acted as some kind of a pain-killer for Ezal...hehehe.

Just imagine, the funny part was that we managed to 'persuade' our friends to join our 'kembara raya'...muahahaha. Mazman said that it was so 'kampung-like'...hehehe. I took it as a compliment of our 'management skills'...muahahaha. It was definitely more fun and thinking back, how strong our bond was when we were together in Sudan. I prefer to keep our friendship strong, insyaallah.

We came out of Syikeen's house just as we heard the maghrib's azan. Our family had a pit-stop at Giant's Kota Damansara where the kids had dinner while we prayed. We came back still laughing from the hilarity of it all. How a great day started without proper plans. Maybe Allah wants to remind us of our family-bond forged in Sudan of all places...Alhamdulillah...