Garangao Children’s Festival

Garangao is a festival where children are dressed in bright clothes and carry a cloth bag to visit houses within their vicinity and collect sweets and nuts from their neighbors. This festival holds a very important role in the Gulf region, especially in Qatar. There are different names from each region

Children aged 12 and under are celebrating this festival. They go in groups and venture through their neighborhood and sing special songs and receive sweets from them. It’s a tradition where it reminds the people in Qatar about their cultural past uniting the community and the children.

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Garangao Festival in Qatar

In the middle part of this holy month, this festival is celebrated on the 14th night of Ramadan after breaking of the fast. It’s a way for children to “take a break” from the fasting.

Through the years of celebrating this event in Qatar, it has changed. Because in the past, children can safely walk from house to house without the fear of walking to strangers and the dangers of fast vehicles. In the modern day, children are now accompanied by their older siblings or housemaids.