Muslim Prayer

We live next to two mosques. Each morning before sunrise, the mosques broadcast the call to prayer into the neighborhood. One of the Muadhin's has a beautiful lilting voice and the other has a rough gravelly voice. But in stereo each morning, we hear their calls to the Muslims in our neighborhood to wake up for prayer. The calls and the prayers are chanted and sung similar to a Gregorian chant. So, it's quite a soothing and restful sound that drifts over the neighborhood in the darkness of early morning. (click here http://muslim-canada.org/athan_mp3.mp3) A few of our neighbors have roosters and each morning the roosters crowing accompanies the call. Forever, these two sounds will be linked together in my mind.

Muslim men are required to pray 5 times a day. For women it is optional. The exact timing, I'm not sure of because it changes slightly each day due to the sun position. And there are different interpretations given the branch of Islam that you follow. But approximately, the timings are sunrise, noon, afternoon, sunset, and after dark. At this time of the year, the sunrise prayer is happening around 6am and each morning is getting a little later each day. There is a short call to wake people up approximately 15 minutes before this. The Muadhin says, "Prayer is more sweet than sleep." Right now, this is all timed just after my alarm goes off, so as I'm getting dressed and brushing my teeth I'm being serenaded by the Muadhin's and roosters. As I'm going to work in the taxi, I see many men in the neighborhood walking or driving to the Mosque for their prayer.

Each of the 5 prayers of the day is different from one another. They are all recited in Arabic; even in non-Arabic speaking countries (kind of like Latin mass was for the Catholics). When we were in Turkey, the mosques there were sending out the call to prayer in Arabic, too. Each prayer has its own sequence of prayers, bowing, kneeling, and bowing prostrate. (click here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/galleries/salah/) This specific sequence is conducted in Arabic. At the end of the prayer, the worshipper looks to their right and then their left shoulder to bless the angels recording their good and bad deeds. The worshipper may also choose to make his/her own personal prayer and this can be done in their local language.

On the radio, there are several Muslim stations that broadcast the prayers, sermons and the reading of the Quran. These broadcasts are all day long (All Muslim - All the Time). Today, in the taxi on the way to work, I was riding right during the time of the sunrise prayer. Most of the taxi drivers are Pakistani (and Muslim). My driver was listening to the broadcast of the prayer - and a rooster was crowing in the background. Took me a second to even realize that the rooster was on the radio. Guess I'm not the only one for whom these sounds will be forever intermingled.

More information:
http://muslim-canada.org/salaat.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_prayer
http://www.islam-usa.com/pray1.html
http://www.sunna.info/prayer/TheBasicsoftheMuslimsPrayer.php

I Seeee Yoooou

Lyra Had a Meltdown

I wasn't there - see previous post about Turkey.

Her meltdown's these days are so few and far between, we don't really get frustrated with her. Sometimes, she just needs to let off steam. Russell sent me a text message while I was in Turkey, so I asked her about it yesterday when I got back home.

Me: So, I hear you had a meltdown.
Lyra: I was very angry. I was screaming and yelling and kicking.
Me: Where were you?
Lyra: I was in my room.
Russell (in the background): I sent her to her room.
Lyra: I was hitting the door and kicking the door. I was yelling at Baba.
Me: Why?
Lyra: I didn't want to clean up the table. I wanted another story.
Me: I can appreciate that reading a story is more fun, but sometimes we have to help - even if it's not as fun. Baba does a lot of things and he needs your help.
Lyra: Because a family helps each other.
Me: Yes.

On the Road

The Dubai airport is BUSY all day, every day. I know this because recently I have been at the airport at the oddest hours.

On Thursday, I traveled to Turkey for 2 days of meetings. My flight left Dubai at 3:45am. I called the taxi at 1:30 and when I arrived, the place was heaving! Upon getting out of the taxi, there was a Canadian man standing there talking with another taxi driver. Apparently, he had just left his passport in the back of a taxi and was trying to find out how he could get the taxi driver to come back. He used my phone to call the central help desk (I could have told him this would be an exercise in frustration). Eventually, I needed to go to my flight for check in and last I knew he was heading down to the Taxi Office at the airport to hopefully get more assistance.

The queue for my the check in area was huge - extending down the concourse. Apparently, there was also a flight going to Africa because my queue was full of Africans with HUGE piles of purchases and bags on their luggage trolleys. I was starting to get a bit worried because the line wasn't moving at all - and with this many people ahead of me I didn't know how I was going to get checked in in time. While standing there, I noticed a few impatient people jumping the queue to the beginning and I was starting to get a bit peeved. After the 3rd or 4th person, I wandered up toward the front of the line, too. Good thing I did. Turns out I wasn't in line. The long queue of people I was standing with were very early and couldn't even check in for their flight. They were just "pre-forming" their line for when it was their turn.

After two days of meetings, I returned to Dubai on a flight that arrived at 5am. Once again, the place was so busy. Things never stop there. Unlike at home, there seem to be no noise reduction hours or anything like that. We should know, we live under one of the flight paths. Especially in the evening, we seem to have quite a few flights overhead. Just this morning I heard a flight coming around 4:55am - probably the flight from Istanbul.

Christmas in Dubai

Yes, they have Christmas in Dubai. Just like at home, the malls are decked in their Christmas finery and the Christmas tunes are being piped in for your shopping pleasure. Of course, it isn't quite as pervasive as back home. We're not seeing the houses lit up driving down the street. But our next door neighbors have put up a wreath. The garden centers are advertising their live Christmas trees - and not too expensive either. But with our upcoming trip to Egypt and being gone for 10 days, we have decided that the tree would become too much of a tinder box in the house. We have hung the stockings for St. Nick's arrival last Saturday (a couple days too late, I know).

For those reading from the upper midwest, I've heard about the arrival of snow. Hopefully, it will be a white Christmas (would be the first time in many years). I just checked Yahoo and I see we have the same temperature (25C here and 25F at home). Well, I had to say it, sorry. As much as I was pining away for autumn, I can say I'm not feeling the same way about winter. Definitely this is the time of year when desert living has its rewards.

When looking for options on a Christmas trip we had originally considered going to Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic to visit the Christmas markets - but the thought of tramping about in snow without having brought our snow boots to Dubai - my toes started to ache from frostbite just thinking about it. So, instead we will be seeing Santa in Hurghada (on the Red Sea in Egypt). I figured - well, we've come here to experience the Middle East so why would we go up to the snowy north? So, sun and beach are in our Christmas plan.

nancyj said... I'm wondering what you will do with your pets for the 10 days you are gone? Will Basil go with or isn't he allowed to travel between countries now that he's planted in the UAE?
I guess if we wanted we could take him to Egypt, but he's not going with us. We have found a good vet who offers kenneling services. Basil has already been their 2 times (once when we were in Turkey and again for our trip to Oman). This time, the cats are going, too. We found out that the neighbors - who we thought might look in on the cats from day to day - are also going back to the UK.

Kathie said...
But on TV are they playing over and over and over again ....A Christmas Carol-various versions, Its a Wonderful Life (love it), don't forget A Charlie Brown Christmas (would not be Christmas without it), Miracle on 34th St., How the Grinch Stole Christmas, White Christmas, and don't forget Home Alone, and last but not least A Christmas Story-gotta get one of those lamps!
I don't know - I guess so. But we don't have a television here. My sister brought some Christmas videos. So, we now have the Grinch, Year w/o Santa Claus, some others, and I've always had Charlie Brown

We Made It

After a near-miss at the Immigration office for want of two 2x2 photos of Lyra and Russell, I did eventually get both of their passports. It was close going for a while! And now they both have official resident status in the UAE.

So, finally at around noon we were on our way to Oman. We had heard that the border crossing can be quite jammed and can take several hours to get through, but luckily we didn't run into that. I think that by leaving on Thursday (the day before the weekend) we avoided much of the rush. However, we did find out when trying to enter Oman that we neglected to get exit stamps on our passports from the UAE, so had to retrack about 5Km to the UAE border patrol to get these stamps.

Most of our time in Oman was spent exploring by car. We had a marathon set of days to get to all the places we planned to go. Our main destination was Turtle Beach where there are several breeds of sea turtles that come to lay their eggs on the beach. The peak season to see the turtles is in June-August, but the guide books had told us that turtles come up to the beach most every day of the year. We were lucky enough to see a turtle laying her eggs. We waited in the dark on the beach for nearly 30 minutes. If the turtles are spooked or disturbed, they will return to the sea. But once they start laying their eggs, then they will keep laying until they are done. The poor girl was a bit disoriented from all the attention. I was amazed at her size.

The next morning, we returned to the beach to see in the light what we had struggled to see in the dark. The whole beach is covered with holes about 5 feet across and 2 feet deep that the turtles dig. We could see several tracks from the previous night where a turtle had dragged herself to the beach. Probably about 7-8 turtles had visisted the beach the previous night.

If we return again, we know to bring lots of mosquito repellent and mosquito netting for our beds. I am still scratching the bites on my feet, legs and arms. Lyra had over 9 bites on one cheek.

Oman is definitely worth a return visit. Lots of hiking and exploring still to do.