Eid Mubarak

The moon has spoken...it is now Eid, probably the most important Muslim holiday of the year.  The Eid following Ramadan marks the end of fasting and a new year.  My roommate and I had the unique opportunity to attend the special Eid prayer and family gathering with a local Saudi family.  This holiday is somewhat like a combination of our Christmas and New Year holidays.
We awoke before dawn (about 4am) to get ready for the special prayer.  We dressed in nice clothes for the family celebration later on, and then covered our finery with the abaya and hijab.  My roommate and I struggled with our hijab (head covering) for a good five or ten minutes before it would stay on our heads tightly.  Since we were going to an outside prayer gathering near a mosque where only Muslims are allowed, we had to blend in.  Our Saudi friend advised us, "If anyone asks, tell them you are Muslim but that you don't speak Arabic."  His daughter jokingly added, "Tell them you converted on the internet."  Thankfully, we did not have to do either.
As we arrived at the mosque, there was an excitement in the air much like one might feel on Christmas morning.  We followed the women of the family to an outside area near the mosque, while the men (dressed in their finest thobes) gathered inside the mosque.  The women lay rugs on the ground wherever they could find an empty spot.  The children, dressed in fancy outfits often matching their siblings, were given baskets of candies to take around to the women and other children gathered outside the mosque.  It is customary to give gifts of candy, toys, and money to the children on Eid.
The soft murmurings of the women echoed the special Eid call to prayer, praising Allah for being "great" or "almighty" and thanking him for his blessings in the new year.  As we waited for the Imam to speak (their equivalent of a pastor), I glanced around at the women fanning themselves on the rugs and wondered why any of us had even bothered to do our hair or makeup that morning.  My roommate loosened her hijab to pull her hair back and I felt sweat dripping down my back and legs.  Almost all of the older women waved some sort of makeshift fan in an attempt to cool off.  
Finally, the Imam began the prayer.  Our Saudi friends gestured for us to remain seated on the rug as they stood to begin the prayer.  I looked around and noticed some other women doing the same thing, but not because they were not muslim.  If a woman is menstruating, she is considered unclean to pray and is therefore not required to.  So, my roommate and I just pretended it was our time of the month as we observed the prayer which looked almost identical to the one our students perform after lunch each day.
Once the prayer was finished, some of the families left.  Our Saudi friends stayed on our rug to listen to the Imam give a special Eid "sermon".  We were told later that it had something to do with not fasting on Eid, since they fasted for Ramadan.  Our Saudi friend explained to us that the fasting and abstaining from certain things for Ramadan is a preparation of sorts for the Eid prayer in which they ask Allah to allow them to go to the highest degree of heaven when they die.  Apparently, there are 100 degrees of heaven.  Each degree of heaven takes 500 years before you can go up to the next one.  However, you can skip some of the degrees and go nearer to the top if you do things like fast for Ramadan and give Eid money to the poor. (If you are reading this and you are muslim, please forgive me if I got something wrong.  I am relaying what I understood from my Saudi friend, but I may have misunderstood something.)
We left the heat, gladly welcoming the A/C as we drove to our Saudi friends' extended family for breakfast.  We socialized with the women in broken English before enjoying a breakfast of pitas, foul (beans and olive oil), spicy mangos, olives, cheese, scrambled eggs, turkey slices, etc.