The Eids of Tanzania

Tanzania celebrates all Christian and all Muslim holidays. Yay for a plethora of public holidays! Since Ramadan is ending we have Eid Al-Fitr off this week. In October we will have a day off for Eid Al-Hajj.

While it is nice to have a handful of holidays throughout the year, the Eids are a bit of a challenge for one reason: we never know on which day they will fall.

The Eids fall on the first of the month, which is based on the moon. I have heard that the Imam who determines the new moon for Tanzania (maybe he lives in Dar Es Salaam?) must see the moon before being able to declare it the New Moon and therefore, the holiday. This means that we usually only know not to go into work the night before (or in many cases the morning of).

A couple of years ago it seemed like all the Eids fell on the weekend, even if it was expected to be on Wednesday, it got delayed until the weekend. Maybe it was really cloudy several days in a row where the Imam lives?

Last year there was great confusion when I came into the office and only half of the ex-pats were present, and none of the Tanzanian staff. Everyone else had figured out that it was a holiday, but we didn't actually get the official notification until 10am, the day of the holiday.

About a month after that I thought I had sorted it out. I heard the announcement in town, I asked my guard, I was quite sure that I didn't need to go into work the next day. I woke up to the mosque singing with more gusto and volume than normal, which only further confirmed that it was the Eid. I turned off my alarm and slept in. Later on in the morning I received a text from my friend asking where I was and why I wasn't at the office. What???
Almost everyone, even the mosque, had gotten it wrong. It wasn't the holiday.

This week the office calendar said that Eid Al-Fitr is either Thursday or Friday. However, last week we found out that it is either Monday and/or Tuesday and/or Wednesday. There is some confusion as to whether it is a two-day holiday or one-day. A poll at the office gave mixed responses regarding the duration of the holiday, but the majority vote is two-day holiday.

In conclusion: today, Monday, we are working. Any two (or one?) of the remaining days this week we will have a holiday.

*If you were confused about the information provided in this post, don't worry, it is normal. The Eids of Tanzania can be confusing, but hey! its the end of Ramadan, let the celebrations begin...at some point in the next 4 days.