An Inside View

Karen is amazing. I return to the lodge to find that once again she has the whole staff in an uproar but this time they are moving furniture and cleaning.  First it was our room, where everything was shifted, swept, washed , disinfected and put back and now she has them in the kitchen doing the same thing. 

In the center of the courtyard is a huge pile of refuse that has been cleaned out of the kitchen and they are still at it.  Karen is in there herself, with a hose, washing down the walls.  They are literally overhauling the kitchen. 

Karen comes outside for a moment to tell me, "There was a rat in there!  They are willing to clean but they don't know how to do it and so I'm showing them."  If what they suffer is a lack of motivation, then Karen is supplying the lion's share.  She is determined to clean the filth from the kitchen so that no one else will suffer the same fate as she did.

Despite my misgivings I return to the mosque at five, where I am immediately introduced to an elderly man who is the children's school teacher and who speaks excellent English.  We have an animated talk seated on the floor of the mosque and I am able to put my request to him in plain English, saying that I wish to learn to sing the azan.

'I hope I will not offend you,' he replies 'but you see in Islam, singing is not allowed.  Therefore, there can be no instruction.' As his earnest and compassionate gaze meets mine I am dumbfounded by his answer, for if no singing is allowed then what is the glorious sound coming out of the mouth of the muezzin.  I meekly accept my fate, deciding not to challenge the statement. 

Looking directly at me, the teacher, who has introduced himself as Manzoor Ahmad, then smiles warmly and informs me that the singer, however, will now come and speak the azan for me, line by line, so that I can follow. 

The young muezzin is then summoned to join us and he appears with the other young men who have followed events so far with much interest.  We are sitting in a circle and the singer not only speaks the words but he begins to sing them to me, line for line, me singing each line after him until I get it right.

Finally I demonstrate the result for them and everyone listens closely to my rather clumsy interpretation of what I have just heard.  To my surprise, however, my rendition is greeted with general excitement and the singer tells me that the others who are listening like my version of the azan very much!

When I return to the lodge it is already dark.  Unbelievably, Karen and the staff are still cleaning the kitchen!  She greets me with a broad smile, obviously in her element.  I can't believe her prodigious energy so soon after that severe illness.

I repair to my journal to sum up the events at the mosque:
"I talked with Manzoor and our topics ranged from the problems of organized religion to the concept of the omnipresence of God to the difficulties of ineffective meditation.  Finally we got onto the subject of the Koran which Manzoor says was given to the world by a djinn by the name of Jibrail.  Apparently there are good and bad djinns, the good ones angelic and the bad ones demonic.  Jibrail (or Gabriel) was God's messenger in this case, and Mazoor informed me that through this same messenger all the world's holy books have come."