Two things the Lebanese cannot do without: eids (feasts) and fire or fireworks. There's always some kind of eid going on somewhere in the country - be it a religious celebration, someone's birthday, pre-marriage festivity or celebration of a child's first tooth. No occasion goes by without having the word eid preceding it. And nothing, as in nothing (not even a tray of shooters) goes by without some form of firework attached to it. Fireworks for weddings, candles for shrines and fires for religious days such as yesterday's Eid el Saleeb (Feast of the Cross).
Fat neighbour came up with the clever idea that, seeing as yesterday was Eid el Saleeb, we might as well make use of the massive pile of dead leaves and pruned branches that were collecting in our back garden (thanks to Dad's big, ongoing garden clean-up project) and cast them into flames in celebration of the eid.
And so the aboulleh was ignited, reminding me of the Eid el Saideh celebrations celebrated in Lebanon during our childhood, where we'd go to Jeddo's brother so catch the spectacular aboulleh show before heading back to Jeddo's staygha for the magical fireworks' performance.
The interesting thing about this eid, is that the 12 days leading from Eid el Saleeb will supposedly indicate what kind of weather we can expect for the upcoming 12 months of the year. Yesterday was very cloudy and it rained in some parts of Lebanon (so September will be that way - which i don't understand if the rest of the month is going to be an indicator...) and today is sunny with a bit of cloud (so October will still offer us some sun).
Tomorrow will tell what kind of November we can expect. Whatever the weather, we can definitely be sure the month will be accompanied by hundreds of fireworks and many eids.
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