Good day! It's time for some hot black coffee!
This year my family and I celebrated our Gawai Dayak Festival quietly on our own here in Doha. Looking at the photos of friends and families celebrating the Dayak's New Year which also coincides with the Harvest Festival back home brought back memories and feelings of nostalgia to me.
We could not spend the few days of the Gawai (meaning Festival) Dayak back in our birth place with our families and friends, because of some personal exigencies, but we tried as far as possible to observe the rites as a prelude to the actual day itself by having the midnight Gawai wine toast to health, wealth and prosperity. As our customary toast, my daughter and I drank a glass of red wine each 'yum seng' style at the first stroke of midnight of 31st of May/01st June 2016.
In the evening of the 01st of June, my family and I (just the three of us, as my younger daughter, NC is in Japan) decided to celebrate it by having our Gawai dinner at El Faro, Marsa Malaz Kempinski Hotel, The Pearl, Doha. As we were having dinner outside of our home, My daughter and I did not don our traditional Dayak Iban attire, but opted instead to wear our 'Kebaya Nyonya'. For me, I chose a sarong made of Japanese cotton with traditional Japanese art which I purchased in Japan at a Japanese textile town called Nippori back in 2007!
