NEW YEAR’S EVE:

The Swahili celebrate New Year’s Eve with wonderful parties and weddings. There is music, food and dance everywhere and tourists and other visitors are usually present and most welcome.

MAULIDI

Maulidi is a religious festival that is very important to the Swahili people. It is a yearly festival that celebrates the birth of Prophet Mohammed and it takes place in Lamu Island in March. Thousands of Muslims come from all over Kenya and other neighboring countries to take part in religious recitations and narrations. There is music and dance and at the very last day everyone goes to pay their respects at the tomb of Habib Swaleh the inventor of this festival.

EID UL-FITR/ EID MUBARAK

This festival comes at the last day of the holy month of Ramadan. During this month, every healthy Muslim over the age of twelve is not supposed to eat or drink anything including water the whole day. You can however eat as much as you want after sunset and very early in the morning before sunrise. After a whole month of fasting, the fast is broken and is marked with a public holiday known as Eid-ul-Fitr or Eid Mubarak where all Swahili delicacies are served in plenty and food is shared with the poor people regardless of whether they are Muslims or not. The festivities that accompany this day can only be compared with Christmas.

Online Swahili lessons for kids: dinolingo.com