Last night was Garangao, a holiday for children common in the Arabian Peninsula that is held on the 14th evening of Ramadan.
I assumed that everyone would just go to the planned events at places like Katara, the Pearl or Souq Waqif but I just spoke with a Qatari friend of mine who has just finished building his home in a new area way out of town, and despite the fact that only about 10 homes are finished, he had Garangao callers at his door. That caught him off guard and he didn’t have any nuts and sweets prepared. He’ll be ready next year. It’s nice to know that some Qatari children still do Garangao the traditional way of going door-to-door in their neighbourhood.
I went to Katara to see the activities there. I think it has been four or five years now that Katara has been hosting a Garangao event and it gets more popular every year. This time I think they have become too popular, the place was really crowded.
I’m not sure how entertaining it would have been for families overall, it was a hassle getting through traffic to the parking lot, big crowds wherever things were being handed out, and it just seemed to lose the traditional feel of the holiday.
I did have the benefit of also checking out some of the exhibits at Katara. The most recent exhibit had many galleries dedicated to the human body.
They even had tables where you could receive free hearing and vision exams. I did them and was fine. One of my eyes is a bit weaker than the other, a result of getting ophthalmic shingles about 5 years ago, but I still don’t need glasses (yay!).
As for Garangao I think next year I will go to one of the other events.
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