Fiza's Life: Nak balik raya!

Just now was at Makan2 til around 12+am. Makan2 will be closed from the 9th til 20th of September due to most of them going back to Malaysia for raya. Feels so jealous at them. I want to go back to Malaysia also. I want to hear people takbir at houses the night before. I love those traditions.

Usually the night before raya I will buka puasa at Kajang then TokBurn (my grandpa) and the mosque people will come and takbir at the house sometime after Isya'. Then after everything
done I will go back home.

Then the next morning usually around 4am my family will be on

our way to Ipoh, Perak. It's been a while since we've stayed over at Ipoh few days before raya. Last time, when I was a kid, we usually stayed over, but then nowadays I don't know why we don't. Normally we will reach Ipoh half an hour before sembahyang raya. On the way, my sisters will be asleep. Sometimes some of us didn't even shower til we get to our Nenek's house.

After sembahyang raya, we will start to salam all the elders and each other. Then people will start coming over the house. We have a tent with few tables and chairs in front of the house. So we usually will get a lot of people and relatives coming over. We have a pretty big family in Ipoh. It's always fun over there. I'm one of the eldest around there so we have little kids running around and also babies around the house. I love kids. Did you guys know that? Kids loves coming to my grandma's house because when they come over to the house, they will always get more than 1 duit raya. They'll get one from my grandma and another one from my daddy. Sometimes they even get duit raya from my uncles and aunties as well. They are so lucky right?

I want you to meet two of my most annoying cousin in my dad's side; Nabil & Farhan. Because they love to "bully" me. Like literally, suka sangat suruh aku main kejar-kejar dengan mereka.

Anyway, there is also another popular house near to my grandma's house.

this one house, my grandma's neighbour whose grandchild is my friend is popular because they give out random duit raya. They'll have 20 sampul with random amount each. Once my cousin got a sampul with 100ringgit inside. The range is usually from 1ringgit-100ringgit. So usually they'll put out the sampul like a fan then ask the kids to choose which sampul they want. Spotted on the pictures, the table wearing blue, they are the random sampul surat family. They tiru my family la, go wear blue baju raya in 2008. I remember when I was young, my elder cousin, this 2 kakak sedara la. Ask me to go and mengorat the son of this uncle. Last-last dah besar jadi bestfriend pulak. So sad I can't go back this raya because soon the guy is going to study in US. But he told me that he will be back for raya next year so maybe we'll meet again kot. Lagipun other than meeting each other during raya, me and this guy always see each other at KGNS. He's a golfer. The whole family is. So that's another story totally actually. So back to the main topic.

Usually I will go back home during the evening and spent the night at Kajang. Then 2nd day of raya I usually go bersalam with my TokBurn and TokWan. My family at Kajang is not as big as the ones in Ipoh. My dad has 8 siblings from my nenek and some of them have a lot of children then I have another 2 nenek which makes it more bigger than it already is although we don't normally see all of the relatives but our second cousins and third cousins ramai. My mom only has 3 siblings and they don't really have a lot of children. One of them has 5 and another 4. So the raya is more calm in Kajang although all my cousin except for the eldest are all guys. Usually my cousins won't be there for the 2nd day of raya because they'll go beraya at the other side. After breakfast at home we will go to beraya either at Sepang or Klang. So yeah, go ronda2 jumpa all the sedara-mara.

**Snippets of Raya 2008**