Celebrating the sugar fest together.
On Wednesday the 6th of July, the community room of St. Jürgen looked a bit different: Many well dressed muslim families and also german visitors came together to celebrate the sugar fest.
Tge Eid al-Fitr is one of the most important muslim holiday and takes place at the end of ramadan. During ramadan, people do not eat and drink from the morning until the sun goes down. Through the missing of food and drinks, the happiness in the evening is even bigger and the people learn to feel with the poor people which cannot effort 3 meals a day.
When eating together, it is very common to invite friends and in the arabic countries, food is given to poor people. The ramadan is a time of consciousness where people learn to be patient and how to deal with your fellow people. For those who still lives in accommodation with many other people and for those who had to leave their families, this might be a very hard topic.
The first day of ramadan, the whole family is visiting a mosque or a place for praying outside to celebrate. The rest of the day is spend with the family. The flat has been cleaned a lot for this event. People are celebrating, playing with the kids, giving presents to each other and eat a lot of candy. In the islamic countries, there is holiday during the celebration days; even shops and official institutions will be closed.
The idea of celebrating the Eid al-Fitr in Flensburg was made up by people that escaped from their home countries who lives in accommodations for refugees in Flensburg. It was important for them to share the event with the local people. After a suitable room for the event was found the Team Sama Syria started their work: Finding sponsors, doing advertisement—the people did everything themselves—as a group in a very short time.
During the party, orderlies took good care oft he guests, an actor moderated the program and a Syrian confectioner gave coffee and sweets to the people. Already after one hour, all chairs of the community room of St. Jürgen had been seated. Adults and children in funny dresses amused the audience from Syria, Lebanon, Tunisia, Iran, Jemen, Chechnya, Turkey and Germany with games and different acts. In the back of the room, two workers from the “Spielmobil” painted happy children faces. At the end of the event, a group of young Syrian boys started spontaneous to dance to traditional music.
Under the audience there were also migrants that lived in Flensburg for a longer time already. “This is great! Why didn’t we do this before?” someone said. It was clear to see how happy the people were that they could meet on this special day to celebrate together with their friends and families. But it was more that just a normal Eid al-Fitr. For many people that are new in Flensburg, it has been a piece of home in a country that is foreign for them.
The german people that attended the event had the possibility to experience the arabic culture in a very nice way. It was very touching when a 6-year old boy was asked by the moderator where he was from—no answer—he might forgot. We hope that this event will return in the future and become a regular factor in the calendar of Flensburg. We would like to give a special thank to the congregation of St. Jürgen who trusted us and gave us their facilities. It can be seen as a valuable contribution to accept social diversity and see it as a chance.
We would also like to say thank you to “Kostümverleih Schnick-Schnack”, some retail sale shops, the “Spielmobil” and the Diako who supported the event spontaneous.
