Brisk sales ahead of Garangao night

DOHA: As Garangao celebrations will be marked tonight across the country with traditional enthusiasm, the sales of Garangao related sweets, nuts and other accessories are witnessing a huge rise.

Almost all malls, hypermarkets and other shops at traditional souqs, particularly Souq Waqif, saw a big number of customers yesterday and the sales are likely to touch their peak before Iftar today.

Not only citizens and residents are buying sweets and other stuff for distribution among kids tonight (Ramadan 15), various organisations and malls have also lined up colourful events to celebrate the event with full fervor.

Qatar Foundation (QF) is set to celebrate Garangao on Friday, June 1, at Al Shaqab in Education City, with an array of fun and exciting games and cultural activities.

Garangao is a popular children’s festival traditionally celebrated across the Arabian Gulf region midway through Ramadan. On this night, children sing the special ‘Garangao song’, wear traditional clothes, and collect nuts and sweets.

Machaille Al Naimi, President of Community Development, QF, said: “Qatar Foundation is delighted to host this year’s Garangao celebrations at Al Shaqab. The holy month of Ramadan is an occasion for contemplation, social interaction, and engaging in good deeds. Garangao provides a wonderful opportunity for the whole community to come together, and we look forward to welcoming families and children of all ages and nationalities to Education City.”

As part of the festivities, young visitors to the event at Al Shaqab’s indoor arena will have the opportunity to meet Rashed and Nora, their favorite characters from ‘Siraj’, QF’s animated educational TV series that teaches the Arabic alphabet in a fun and educational way.

Additionally, a number of QF centers will mark this year’s celebrations by also organizing activities, such as sack races, pony rides, 3D jigsaw puzzles, football games, storytelling sessions, and the chance for children to make their own paper lanterns.

Garangao Night at Hyatt Plaza will be held today from 8 -11 pm with games, traditional dances, Garangao bags distribution and many other activities.

Yesterday, the sales of Garangao baskets and other sweets and nuts were extraordinarily high from Souq Waqif to nut shops at Najma and Matar Qadeem. Some customers bought nuts and sweets in bulk quantity to make gift pouches themselves while other opted to buy ready-made packs consisting of sweets, chocolates, nuts etc. The rates of different packs varied as per content and quantity.

Different malls also installed stalls at their entrances to sell Garangao sweets and packs Dar Al Salam has installed a stall for kids and families which includes garments, goody bags, small stylish boxes and huge boxes.

The municipalities across the country also launched crackdown on shops selling nuts and sweets ahead of Garangao festival which falls on mid of Ramadan.

“The inspection drives aim at ensuring shops are complying to the health rules,” said the Ministry of Municipality and Environment in a statement.

Demands of nuts and sweets surged ahead of the festival because citizens are buying it in large quantity to distribute among children who visited door-to-door singing traditional Garangao songs to celebrate the festival.