Feature: Many Egyptian expats return home to enjoy end of Ramadan, Eid with families, friends

"I took my car and drove from Kuwait to Egypt to spend the last days of the holy month of Ramadan and the Fast-breaking Feast (Eid al-Fitr) with my family and friends. Ramadan and Eid are tasteless without loved ones," said Essam al-Sayyid, a 43-year-old Egyptian man who runs a small store in Kuwait, after coming back home.

Known among his Egyptian friends as "the Kuwaiti" due to the long years he spent in the Gulf country, Sayyid is one of hundreds of thousands of Egyptians who prefer to spend Ramadan concluding days and the Eid in their homeland, surrounded by loved ones and enjoying traditional gatherings and festivities that they miss outside home.

"The Eid time is a perfect time to visit home because of the joyful atmosphere that makes people get over any hard feelings and only makes room for happiness and good time," the returnee told Xinhua, describing his driving journey from Kuwait to Egypt and taking a ferry to cross the Red Sea with his car as "exhausting but exciting and interesting."

As for the last day of Ramadan, Sayyid said that seeing people rushing back and forth before the fast-breaking meal (iftar) time, frequenting juice and pickling stores while the Quran is heard in the background in the streets "is a scene that you can only find in Egypt."

Marked right after the last day of the Muslim holy month, the post-Ramadan feast is a three-day official holiday in Egypt where people of all ages, families and friends, gather and go out for entertainment. Parents buy new clothes for their children, mostly referred to as "Eid clothes," give their children pocket money to go out and buy what they want during the joyful occasion.

However, the scene is not like that in the West in general and in Denmark in particular, according to Khaled Rashad, an Egyptian man in his 30s who arrived a day earlier in the Pyramids City of Egypt's Giza province where he lived before traveling to the Scandinavian country 10 years ago.

"For adults, Eid in Denmark is not an official holiday, and we may have to go to work during Eid," Rashad told Xinhua while accompanying his little child Salma at a coffee shop near the main street of the Pyramids City.

"Although Eid is a normal day in Denmark, they try to make it different for Muslim children. So, we go to the mosque where our children are given food and gifts to make them feel the joyful Muslim festivity," the man added, stressing that it is important for him to spend Eid with his mother, brother and sister in Egypt after years of absence.

Egyptian expatriates exceed eight million of the country's 94-million population, most of whom work in oil-rich Gulf states. Saudi Arabia is the number one host of Egyptian workers worldwide, accommodating about 985,000 Egyptian labors according to Egyptian reports.

Hany Mostafa, 36, who works at a supermarket in Saudi Arabia's Dammam city, the capital of the kingdom's eastern province, said that the aspects of Ramadan in Saudi Arabia is normal in terms of entertainment but massive in terms of worship.

"We expatriates choose to go back to Egypt during the last three days of Ramadan to catch part of the holy month and spend Eid in our homeland, with all the aspects, gatherings and entertainments that we lack in the kingdom," Mostafa told Xinhua.

The man added that in Dammam Egyptians miss all the entertainment atmosphere of Ramadan and Eid back home, noting that shopping after iftar is the basic fun for people in Saudi Arabia during the holy month.

"Although Dammam is a domestic tourist city in Saudi Arabia frequented by people from all over the kingdom for entertainment, the city during Ramadan and Eid is quiet and cannot be compared to the liveliness of these occasions in Egypt," he added.

Most Egyptians are currently excited on the Eid eve as the countdown is ticking to mark an annual farewell to the holy month of Ramadan and the beginning of a vast three-day feast full of entertainment activities for people of all ages. Endit