A quarantine Eid

by Rizouana P.

My eyes opened when I heard noises coming from the kitchen as if two people were fighting with frying pans in their hands. But luckily it was just my mom preparing food. ‘I wonder why she was making so much noise? It’s just Eid,’ I thought to myself. ‘Wait no it’s a quarantine Eid which means we can’t leave the house because there’s a deadly disease called COVID-19 that has been spreading all over the world.’ Where we live in NYC, it is the epicenter so going outside during Eid is a no! Our apartment is a three-minute walk from the Elhumrust hospital which is known to be the hospital in the worse condition during this pandemic so we have to be extra careful about everything that we do.

For this reason, we can’t leave the house and visit our relatives. I don’t like going outside or visiting people’s houses during Eid anyways so it’s honestly whatever. In the previous Eids, my relatives had to call and invite me so many times to go visit them, and my friends had to come and get me out of my house to hang out with them. I don’t know why I get social anxiety during Eid days, I just don’t feel comfortable when I am surrounded by a lot of people.

I had so much trouble falling asleep and only slept for two hours last night. My parents were talking on the phone with my relatives in Bangladesh so we stayed up until 4 am. Even when I went to bed I could not fall asleep. For the next two hours I was scrolling through Instagram and TikTok to make my eyes tired but it didn’t work. Then I decided to start doing french braids on my hair and finally, I was able to fall asleep around 6 am.

Surprisingly, when I woke up this morning at 8 am I was feeling super energetic. I guess it’s the Eid spirit! I immediately got up, brushed my teeth, and washed my face, and then started cleaning my room. I knew we would not have any visitors but I still wanted to make sure our home looked tidy. Then my mom called me to have breakfast and I had a Bengali sweet called shamai. If I were to describe the taste of it, I would say it is like sweet spaghetti but a lot more creamy! I know you might be shocked about me eating sweet for breakfast but it is a Bengali tradition during Eid day.

Around 10:30 am I went to go take a cold shower. After I got out of the shower I got ready for no reason but just to take pictures of myself. Then my mom called me to eat lunch. The food is the best part about Eid. I had polow, beef, and other Bengali food. As much as they are super greasy, they taste so good. Desi food over anything else!! After eating I helped my mom clean up and tried taking some pictures.

Taking pictures is HARD!! When I got a few decent pictures, I gave up. Then I got bored so when my mom got out of the shower, I did her makeup and hair. The whole time she was cursing at me and telling me to stop. But I didn’t care at all and why would I stop halfway through?

During the afternoon, I was on video chat with some of my close friends and we were celebrating a quarantine Eid. The whole time we just played Bollywood music and talked to each other about how much we want to go outside. Around 5 pm my best friend Rozana and I watched a movie together through zoom. She shared her screen and we got to watch the same thing at the same time. We watched Jumanji: the next chapter! It was honestly a nerve-racking movie!! Every level just gets more intense time after time. Once there are monkeys chasing the characters and then the next time it was some ostriches. I often don’t watch movies like this but this so this movie was just terrifying, I wonder how the dictator makes them. It must be a lot of work!!

During the evening my mom got a call from one of my uncles saying that my cousin had a weird rash on his body! It is known to be one of the symptoms for COVID-19 in kids and he is only eleven years old. In case you are wondering why he got a rash, it was because he went to go visit my grandma’s house. When he came back, he did not even take a shower just simply changed his clothes! I don’t understand why some of my family members are so careless. There’s a global pandemic going on, our main goal is to survive now not celebrate Eid to the fullest. I was so mad at everyone especially his parent, why didn’t they tell him to take a shower? Why is everyone being so careless? A simple mistake can cause so much damage, I wish everyone took this situation a little bit more seriously. I hope it’s nothing serious but an allergic reaction.

Not going to lie, quarantine Eid was not as bad as I thought it would be. I had fun spending some quality time with my family even though we did not do much. It’s not every Eid that my dad stays home and spends time with us so in a way this Eid was somewhat special and memorable. This special Eid helped me realize that if you accept the reality and try to make the best out of it you will not be disappointed. Imagine if I complained the whole day about not being able to celebrate Eid like usual, I would probably be really disappointed the whole day. I think it is also important that we live our own lives instead of hoping we had the lives of other people. Throughout the day, I saw a lot of people going outside and taking really cute pictures and if I felt insecure about it, I think I would probably be sad. However, I did not let that affect me and just continued to focus on my day and tried to make the most out of it. So on that note, we should be happy with what we have. I hope we don’t have to celebrate any future Eid like this but every experience is a memory for the future.