Our First Cultural Exhibition

Salams lovely people :)

Decided to post about an event which happens once a year in Yarmouk uni and its called:
Ma'rod Thaqofi (meaning: culture exhibition)

This year its held from 3rd to 5th April and they decided to set up the booths at a carpark in front of the Students Affairs building. Last year it was held inside there but due to the overwhelming guests (mostly students who just go there for food jkjk) they had to set it up in an open space area. Better ventilation..easier to clean up etc

So us Singaporeans kan tk ramai jadi most of us had to volunteer and take turns taking care of the booth and sharing about Singapore to people who come. Arabs sometimes are just so full of themselves and know nothing about other races and countries. But it was a good opportunity to at least put our country's name next to other countries and inform the public of our tiny island.

So me and some of my friends were in the food & beverages group with some guys , so we had to prepare the food for the 3 days of the exhibition. First day it was malay food which was: Onde2 and Pengat pisang, Second day: Keema and Pudding suji and third day: Popiah sayur and Egg tarts.

Us girls had to make onde2, popiah sayur and keema. So fun since its been a long time we bergotong-royong macam kenduri gitu lol. The guys did the rest. So my first day at the Singapore booth was super duper....awkward and lots of listening into other people's conversations and me just saying 'ahlan wa sahlan' to the arabs who came. I wasn't prepared on what to say so had to improvise je....too busy with onde2 sampai tk terfikir nk prepare cakap ape dengan orang arab haha. But was only there for 2 hours and had a friend with me so it was good la and I was determined to make the second day a fruitful one.

Second day at Ma'rod was 100x better, I enjoyed talking and starting conversations with the arab girls and got my practice at what to say to them so by doing so I had a script in my head. Even the asian students from Brunei, Malaysia came and asked lots of questions which I gladly answered and we shared unknown facts about each others country,
On that day I didn't get to walk around that much but managed to go to Algeria, Palestine and Syria which was so crowded and packed with people. Palestine and Syria had the biggest booths and I recorded a video of them dancing to one of their songs. Didn't understand the lyrics but felt that it had a deep meaning about their country's situation. Algeria had students who spoke english so we learnt a lot about the country. Its a mixture of Morocco and Turkey but suffers economically. All in all it was a fun day.

The final day was the best of all because me and my friend got to go to all the booths and took pictures, learnt more about different countries, ate their food and we got to meet new people. The last day was special also because most of us wore baju kurung and the guys planned last minute a silat and dikir barat performance because we felt that we were lacking in showing something traditional besides our food. Unfortunately...some of us had class during the time that they were gonna perform including myself so dapat tengok recording je :')

Alhamdulillah the Ma'rod was a fun experience and surprisingly the arabs were really easy to talk to and super friendly even though there some who were only there to kacau2 and make fun of us. My arab speaking skillz were put to the test (boleh tahan ah) and now I can't wait to travel around the world lolz. Save money and blaja dulu whoosh~

Later that day, the guys invited us Singaporeans to see an encore of their Ma'rod performance which they were willing to perform again. Thumbs up to them for the effort and we really enjoyed their spontan dikir barat.

PENGAT PISANG :)

POPIAH SAYUR :)

ONDE2 :)

DIKIR BARAT 

Lovely photo us with a random arab girl :)

Singapore geng after the performance

Group photo after their encore perf :) Spot me 

Annyeong haseyoooo 

Cutie dressed in traditional attire from...not sure which country

The entrance of the tent...super hot sunny weather has arrived 

Pak arab mane ni

TURKIYE MERHABAAA COK GUZEL

The queue for photo taking with that guitar was hopeless...amek gambar orang pon jadi la

APA KHABAR MAS

PALESTINE... the guy in the hoodie was passionately telling stories about everyday life there. May Allah protect and give strength to those suffering. Amin

ALGERIA

MOROCCO

Ok so thats all about the event.Hope you like the pictures from the Ma'rod :)
Actually took more pictures but uglyyy so no need.
Assalamualaikum semua and take care!